THE  LIBRARY  X 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


IN  MEMORY  OF 
MRS.  VIRGINIA  B.  SPORER 


X 

V 


MATTHEW   ARNOLD. 


LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA 

An  Essay  Towards  a  Better  Apprehension 
of  the  Bible 

By  MATTHEW  ARNOLD,  D.C.L 

Author  of   "  ESSAYS  IN  CRITICISM," 
"POEMS,"  etc.,  etc.         XXX 


"  The  path  of  the  just  is  as  a  shining  light  which  shineth 
more  and  more  unto  the  perfect  day." 


A.  L.  BURT  COMPANY,     *    j»    ^    *    * 
j*    j»    j»    j*    PUBLISHERS,  NEW  YORK 


CONTENTS. 


FAGE 

Introduction 31 

CHAPTER 

I.  Religion  Given 39 

II.  Aberglaube  Invading 84 

III.  Religion  New-Given 100 

IV.  The  Proof  From  Prophecy 125 

V.  The  Proof  From  Miracles 133 

VI.  The  New  Testament  Record 161 

VII.  The  Testimony  of  Jesus  to  Himself 190 

VIII.  The  Early  Witnesses 250 

IX.  Aberglaube  Reinvading 272 

X.  Our  "  Masses  "  and  The  Bible 303 

XI.  The  True  Greatness  of  The  Old  Testament 328 

XII.  The  True  Greatness  of  Christianity 350 

Conclusion . .  .  366 


INTRODUCTION. 


MATTHEW  ARNOLD,  called  the  Sainte-Beuve  of  Eng- 
land, and  eminent  as  a  poet,  as  a  critic,  as  an  essayist, 
and  master  of  the  most  exquisite  literary  style 
known  among  modern  writers,  was  a  son  of  Dr. 
Arnold  of  Rugby.  He  was  born  at  Laleham,  Eng- 
land, 24th  December,  1822,  and  educated  at  Win- 
chester, Rugby,  and  Balliol  College,  Oxford.  He 
won  the  Newdigate  prize  with  a  poem  on  Cromwell 
in  1843,  and  the  following  year,  graduating  with 
honors,  was  elected  a  fellow  of  Oriel  in  1845.  Soon 
after  he  became  private  secretary  to  Lord  Lans- 
downe,  which  position  he  held  for  several  years  till 
1851,  when  he  was  appointed  one  of  the  lay  inspec- 
tors of  Schools.  During  his  term  of  office,  which 
lasted  till  1885,  he  was  more  than  once  sent  by  Gov- 
ernment to  inquire  into  the  state  of  education  on  the 
Continent,  and  his  masterly  reports  thereon  at- 
tracted much  attention  throughout  the  English- 
speaking  world.  In  1883  a  pension  was  conferred 
on  him,  and  in  the  same  year  he  paid  his  first  visit 
to  the  United  States.  He  died  suddenly  at  Liver- 
pool, 15th  April,  1888. 

3 


4  INTRODUCTION. 

Although  ranking  high  as  a  poet  Arnold's  repu- 
tation as  a  writer  rests  mainly  upon  his  exquisite 
prose.  Nowhere  can  we  find  greater  dignity  of 
thought  and  sentiment  united  to  a  higher  distinction 
of  manner  and  utterance.  His  criticisms  on  poetry 
did  much  to  raise  criticism  in  England  to  the  level 
of  a  serious  and  almost  sympathetic  science.  His 
literary  judgments  have  long  been  received  by  tho 
literary  world  with  a  respect  much  higher  than  that 
paid  to  the  utterances  of  any  other  writer.  His  lit- 
erary style  is  as  nearly  perfect  as  it  was  possible  for 
it  to  be ;  and  it  would  be  difficult  to  overestimate  the 
benefit  to  all  later  writers  of  such  an  admirable' 
model  and  such  a  high  standard  for  comparison. 

ROBEBT  WAITE, 


PREFACE. 


AN  inevitable  revolution,  of  which  we  all  recog- 
nize the  beginnings  and  signs,  but  which  has  already 
spread,  perhaps,  farther  than  most  of  us  think,  is 
befalling  the  religion  in  which  we  have  been  brought 
up.  In  those  countries  where  religion  has  been 
most  loved,  this  revolution  will  be  felt  the  most  keen- 
ly ;  felt  through  all  its  stages  and  in  all  its  incidents. 
In  no  country  will  it  be  more  felt  than  in  England. 
This  cannot  be  otherwise;  it  cannot  be  but  that  the 
revolution  should  come,  and  that  it  should  be  here 
felt  passionately,  profoundly,  painfully;  but  no  one 
is  on  that  account  in  the  least  dispensed  from  the 
utmost  duty  of  consideration  and  caution.  There  is 
no  surer  proof  of  a  narrow  and  ill-instructed  mind, 
than  to  think  and  uphold  that  what  a  man  takes  to 
be  the  truth  on  religious  matters  is  always  to  be  pro- 
claimed. Our  truth  on  these  matters,  and  likewise 
the  error  of  others,  is  something  so  relative,  that  the 
good  or  harm  likely  to  be  done  by  speaking  ought 
always  to  be  taken  into  account.  ""  I  keep  silence  at 
many  things,"  says  Goethe,  "  for  I  would  not  mislead 
men,  and  am  well  content  if  others  can  find  satis- 
faction in  what  gives  me  offence."  The  man  who  be- 
lieves that  his  truth  on  religious  matters  is  so  abso- 

5 


6  PREFACE. 

lately  the  truth,  that  say  it  when,  and  where,  and  to 
whom  he  will,  he  cannot  but  do  good  with  it,  is  in 
our  day  almost  always  a  man  whose  truth  is  half 
hi  under,  and  wholly  useless. 

To  be  convinced,  therefore,  that  our  current  the- 
ology is  false,  is  not  necessarily  a  reason  for  publish- 
ing that  conviction.  The  theology  may  be  false,  and 
yet  one  may  do  more  harm  in  attacking  it  than  by 
keeping  silence  and  waiting.  To  judge  rightly  the 
time  and  its  conditions  is  the  great  thing;  there  is  a 
time,  as  the  Preacher  says,  to  speak,  and  a  time  to 
keep  silence.  If  the  present  time  is  a  time  to  speak, 
there  must  be  a  reason  why  it  is  so. 

And  there  is  a  reason ;  and  it  is  this.  Clergymen 
and  ministers  of  religion  are  full  of  lamentations 
over  what  they  call  the  spread  of  scepticism,  and  be- 
cause of  the  little  hold  which  religion  now  has  on  the 
masses  of  the  people, — the  lapsed  masses,  as  some 
writers  call  them.  Practical  hold  on  them  it  never, 
perhaps,  had  very  much,  but  they  did  not  question 
its  truth,  and  they  held  it  in  considerable  awe;  as 
the  best  of  them  raised  themselves  up  out  of  a 
merely  animal  life,  religion  attracted  and  engaged 
them.  But  now  they  seem  to  have  hardly  any  awe 
of  it  at  all,  and  they  freely  question  its  truth ;  and 
many  of  the  most  successful,  energetic,  and  ingen- 
ious of  the  artisan  class,  who  are  steady  and  rise, 
:itv  now  found  either  of  themselves  rejecting  the 
Bible  altogether,  or  following  teachers  who  tell  them 
the  Bible  is  an  exploded  superstition.  Let  me  quote 
from  the  letter  of  a  workingman — a  man,  himself,  of 


PREFACE.  7 

no  common  intelligence  and  temper — a  passage  that 
sets  this  forth  very  clearly.  "  Despite  the  efforts  of 
the  churches,"  he  says,  "  the  speculations  of  the  day 
are  working  their  way  down  among  the  people,  many 
of  whom  are  asking  for  the  reason  and  authority  for 
the  things  they  have  been  taught  to  believe.  Ques- 
tions of  this  kind,  too,  mostly  reach  them  through 
doubtful  channels;  and  owing  to  this,  and  to  their 
lack  of  culture,  a  discovery  of  imperfection  and  fal- 
libility in  the  Bible  leads  to  its  contemptuous  rejec- 
tion as  a  great  priestly  imposture.  And  thus  those 
among  the  working  class  who  eschew  the  teachings 
of  the  orthodox,  slide  off  towards,  not  the  late  Mr. 
Maurice,  nor  yet  Professor  Huxley,  but  towards  Mr. 
Bradlaugh." 

Despite  the  efforts  of  the  churches,  the  writer 
tells  us,  this  contemptuous  rejection  of  the  Bible  hap- 
pens. And  we  regret  the  rejection  as  much  as  the 
clergy  and  ministers  of  religion  do.  There  may  be 
many  others  who  do  not  regret  it,  but  we  do;  all  that 
the  churches  can  say  about  the  importance  of  the 
Bible  and  its  religion,  we  concur  in.  And  it  is  the 
religion  of  the  Bible  that  is  professedly  in  question 
with  all  the  churches,  when  they  talk  of  religion  and 
lament  its  prospects.  With  Catholics  as  well  as  Prot- 
estants, and  with  all  the  sects  of  Protestantism,  this 
is  so;  and  from  the  nature  of  the  case  it  must  be 
so.  What  the  religion  of  the  Bible  is,  how  it  is  to 
be  got  at,  they  may  not  agree ;  but  that  it  is  the  re- 
ligion of  the  Bible  for  which  they  contend,  they  all 
aver.  "  The  Bible,"  says  Dr.  Newman,  "  is  the  rec- 


S  PREFACE. 

ord  of  the  whole  revealed  faith;  so  far  all  parties 
agree."  Now,  this  religion  of  the  Bible  we  say  they 
cannot  value  more  than  we  do.  If  we  hesitate  to 
adopt  strictly  their  language  about  its  all-impor- 
tance, that  is  only  because  we  take  an  uncommonly 
large  view  of  human  perfection,  and  say,  speaking 
strictly,  that  there  go  to  this  certain  things, — art,  for 
instance,  and  science,  which  the  Bible  hardly  med- 
dles with.  The  difference  between  us  and  them, 
however,  is  more  a  difference  of  theoretical  state- 
ment than  of  practical  conclusion;  speaking  prac- 
tically, and  looking  at  the  very  large  part  of  human 
life  engaged  by  the  Bible,  at  the  comparatively  small 
part  unengaged  by  it,  we  are  quite  willing,  like  the 
churches,  to  call  the  Bible  and  its  religion  aZZ-impor- 
tant. 

And  yet,  with  all  this  agreement  both  in  words 
and  in  things,  when  we  behold  the  clergy  and  min- 
isters of  religion  lament  the  neglect  of  religion,  and 
iHpire  to  restore  it,  how  must  one  feel  that  to  re- 
store religion  as  they  understand  it,  to  re-enthrone 
the  Bible  as  explained  by  our  current,  theology, 
whether  learned  or  popular,  is  absolutely  and  for- 
ever impossible ! — as  impossible  as  to  restore  the  pre- 
dominance of  the  feudal  system,  or  of  the  belief  in 
witches.  Let  us  admit  that  the  Bible  cannot  pos- 
sibly die ;  but  then  the  churches  cannot  even  conceive 
the  Bible  without  the  gloss  they  at  present  put  upon 
it,  and  this  gloss  as  certainly  cannot  possibly  live. 
And  it  is  not  a  gloss  which  one  church  or  sect  puts 
upon  the  Bible  and  another  does  not ;  it  is  the  gloss 


PREFACE,  £ 

they  all  put  upon  it,  and  call  the  substratum  of 
belief  common  to  all  Christian  churches,  and  largely 
shared  with  them,  even,  by  natural  religion.  It 
is  this  so-called  axiomatic  basis  which  must  go,  and 
it  supports  all  the  rest ;  and  if  the  Bible  were  really 
inseparable  from  this  and  depended  upon  it,  then 
Mr.  Bradlaugh  would  have  his  way,  and  the  Bible 
would  go  too ;  for  this  basis  is  inevitably  doomed. 
For  whatever  is  to  stand  must  rest  upon  something 
which  is  verifiable,  not  unverifiable.  Now,  the  as- 
sumption with  which  all  the  churches  and  sects  set 
out,  that  there  is  "  a  great  Personal  First  Cause,  the 
moral  and  intelligent  Governor  of  the  universe,"  and 
that  from  him  the  Bible  derives  its  authority,  can 
never  be  verified. 

Those  who  "  ask  for  the  reason  and  authority  for 
the  things  they  have  been  taught  to  believe,"  as  the 
people,  we  are  told,  are  now  doing,  will  begin  at  the 
beginning.  Rude  and  hard  reasoners  as  they  are, 
they  will  never  consent  to  admit,  as  a  self-evident 
axiom,  the  preliminary  assumption  with  which  the 
churches  start.  But  this  preliminary  assumption 
governs  everything  which  in  our  current  theology 
follows  it ;  and  it  is  certain,  therefore,  that  the  peo- 
ple will  not  receive  our  current  theology.  So,  if 
they  are  to  receive  the  Bible,  we  must  find  for  the 
Bible  some  other  basis  than  that  which  the  churches 
assign  to  it,  a  verifiable  basis,  and  not  an  assump- 
tion ;  and  this,  again,  will  govern  everything  which 
comes  after.  This  new  religion  of  the  Bible  the 


10  PREFACE. 

people  may  receive;  the  version  now  current  of  the 
religion  of  the  Bible  they  never  will  receive. 

Here,  then,  is  the  problem:  to  find  for  the  Bible 
a  basis  in  something  which  can  be  verified,  instead 
of  in  something  which  has  to  be  assumed.  So  true 
and  prophetic  are  Vinet's  words :  "  We  must"  he 
said,  "  make  it  our  business  to  bring  forward  the 
rational  side  of  Christianity,  and  to  show  that  for 
thinkers,  too,  it  has  a  right  to  be  an  authority."  Yes, 
and  the  problem  we  have  stated  must  be  the  first 
stage  in  the  business;  with  this  unsolved,  all  other 
religious  discussion  is  idle  trifling. 

This  is  why  Dissent,  as  a  religious  movement  of 
our  day,  would  be  almost  droll,  if  it  were  not,  from 
the  tempers  and  actions  it  excites,  so  extremely  irre- 
ligious. But  what  is  to  be  said  for  men,  aspiring  to 
deal  with  the  cause  of  religion,  who  either  cannot  see 
that  what  the  people  now  require  is  a  religion  of 
the  Bible  quite  different  from  that  which  any  of  the 
churches  or  sects  supply;  or  who,  seeing  this,  spend 
their  energies  in  fiercely  battling  as  to  whether  the 
church  shall  be  connected  with  the  nation  in  its  col- 
lective and  corporate  character  or  no?  The  ques- 
tion, at  the  present  juncture,  is  in  itself  so  abso- 
lutely unimportant  !  The  thing  is,  to  recast  relig- 
ion. If  this  is  done,  the  new  religion  will  be  the  na- 
tional one ;  if  it  is  not  done,  separating  the  nation  in 
its  collective  and  corporate  character  from  religion 
will  not  do  it.  It  is  as  if  men's  minds  were  much 
unsettled  about  mineralogy,  and  the  teachers  of  it 
were  at  variance,  and  no  teacher  was  convincing,  and 


PREFACE.  11 

many  people,  therefore,  were  disposed  to  throw  the 
study  of  mineralogy  overboard  altogether.  What 
would  naturally  be  the  first  business  for  every  friend 
of  the  study  ?  Surely  to  establish  on  sure  grounds 
the  value  of  the  study,  and  to  put  its  claims  in  a  new 
light  where  they  could  no  longer  be  denied.  But  if 
he  acted  as  our  Dissenters  act  in  religion,  what 
would  he  do?  Give  himself,  heart  and  soul,  to  a 
furious  crusade  against  keeping  the  Government 
School  of  Mines. 

But  meanwhile  there  is  now  an  end  to  all  fear  of 
doing  harm  by  gainsaying  the  received  theology  of 
the  churches  and  sects.  For  this  theology  is  itself 
now  a  hindrance  to  the  Bible  rather  than  a  help; 
nay,  to  abandon  it,  to  put  some  other  construction 
on  the  Bible  than  this  theology  puts,  to  find  some 
other  basis  for  the  Bible  than  this  theology  finds,  is 
indispensable,  if  we  would  have  the  Bible  reach  the 
people.  And  this  is  the  aim  of  the  following  essay: 
to  show  that,  when  we  come  to  put  the  right  con- 
struction on  the  Bible,  we  give  to  the  Bible  a  real  ex- 
perimental basis,  and  keep  on  this  basis  throughout ; 
instead  of  any  basis  of  un verifiable  assumption  to 
start  with,  followed  by  a  string  of  other  unverifiable 
assumptions  of  the  like  kind,  such  as  the  received 
theology  necessitates. 

And  this  aim  we  cannot  seek  without  coming  in 
sight  of  another  aim,  too,  which  we  have  often  and 
often  pointed  out,  and  tried  to  recommend:  culture, 
the  acquainting  ourselves  with  the  best  that  has  been 
known  and  said  in  the  world,  and  thus  with  the  his- 


12  PREFACE. 

tory  of  the  human  spirit.  One  cannot  go  far  in  the 
attempt  to  bring  in,  for  the  Bible,  a  right  construc- 
tion, without  seeing  how  necessary  is  something  of 
culture  to  its  being  admitted  and  used.  The  cor- 
respondent we  have  above  quoted  notices  how  the 
lack  of  culture  disposes  the  people  to  conclude  .it 
once,  from  any  imperfection  or  fallibility  in  the 
Bible,  that  it  is  a  priestly  imposture.  To  a  largo  ex- 
tent, this  is  the  fault,  not  of  the  people's  want  <>f 
culture,  but  of  the  priests  and  theologians,  who  for 
centuries  have  kept  assuring  the  people  that  perfect 
and  infallible  the  Bible  is.  Still,  even  without  tin- 
confusion  added  by  his  theological  instructors,  the 
homo  unius  libri,  the  man  of  no  range  in  his  reading, 
must  almost  inevitably  misunderstand  the  Bible,  can- 
not treat  it  largely  enough,  must  be  inclined  to  treat 
it  all  alike,  and  to  press  every  word. 

For,  on  the  one  hand,  he  has  not  enough  experi- 
ence of  the  way  in  which  men  have  thought  au«l 
spoken,  to  feel  what  the  Bible  writers  are  about;  TO 
read  between  the  lines,  to  discern  where  lie  ought  K> 
rest  with  his  whole  weight,  and  where  he  ouiiht  to 
pass  lightly.  On  the  other  "hand,  the  void  and  hun- 
ger in  his  mind,  from  want  of  aliment,  almost  in. 
sistibly  impels  him  to  fill  it  by  taking  literally  siml 
amplifying  certain  data  which  ho  finds  in  the  IJihl; •. 
whether  they  ought  to  be  so  dealt  with  or  no.  Our 
mechanical  and  materializing  theology,  with  its  in- 
sane license  of  affirmation  about  God,  its  insane  li- 
cense of  affirmation  about  a  future  state,  is  really  the 
result  of  the  poverty  and  inanition  of  our  minds.  It 


PREFACE.  13 

is  because  we  cannot  trace  God  in  history  that  we 
stay  the  craving  of  our  minds  with  a  fancy  account 
of  him,  made  up  by  putting  scattered  expressions  of 
the  Bible  together,  and  taking  them  literally;  it  is 
because  we  have  such  a  scanty  sense  of  the  life  of 
humanity,  that  we  proceed  in  the  like  manner  in 
our  scheme  of  a  future  state.  He  that  cannot  watch 
the  God  of  the  Bible,  and  the  salvation  of  the  Bible, 
gradually  and  on  an  immense  scale  discovering  them- 
selves and  becoming.,  will  insist  on  seeing  them  ready 
made,  and  in  such  precise  and  reduced  dimensions 
as  may  suit  his  narrow  mind. 

To  understand  that  the  language  of  the  Bible  is 
fluid,  passing,  and  literary,  not  rigid,  fixed,  and 
scientific,  is  the  first  step  towards  a  right  under- 
standing of  the  Bible.  But  to  take  this  very  first 
step,  some  experience  of  how  men  have  thought  and 
expressed  themselves,  and  some  flexibility  of  spirit, 
are  necessary ;  and  this  is  culture.  Much  fruit  may 
be  got  out  of  the  Bible  without  it,  and  with  those 
narrow  and  materialized  schemes  of  God  and  a  fu- 
ture state  which  we  have  mentioned ;  that  we  do  not 
deny,  but  it  is  not  the  important  point  at  present. 
The  important  point  is,  that  the  diffusion  every- 
where of  some  notion  of  the  habits  of  the  experi- 
mental sciences, — habits  falling  in,  too,  very  well 
with  the  hard  and  positive  character  of  the  life  of 
"  the  people," — the  point  is,  that  this  diffusion  does 
not  lead  "  the  people  "  to  ask  for  the  ground  and 
authority  for  these  precise  schemes  of  God  and  a  fu- 
ture state  which  are  presented  to  them,  and  to  scr 


14:  PREFACE. 

clearly  and  scornfully  the  failure  to  give  it.  The 
failure  to  give  it  is  inevitable,  because  given  it  can- 
not be;  but  whereas  in  the  training,  life,  and  senti- 
ment of  the  educated  classes  there  is  much  to  make 
them  disguise  the  failure  to  themselves  and  not  in- 
sist upon  it,  in  the  training,  life,  and  sentiment  of 
the  people  there  is  nothing.  So  that,  as  far  as  the 
people  are  concerned,  the  old  traditional  scheme  of 
the  Bible  is  gone ;  while  neither  they  nor  the  so-called 
educated  classes  have  yet  anything  to  put  in  its 
place. 

And  thus  we  come  back  to  our  old  remedy  of  cul- 
ture,— knowing  the  best  that  has  been  thought  and 
known  in  the  world;  which  turns  out  to  be,  in  an- 
other shape,  and  in  particular  relation  to  the  Bible: 
getting  the  power,  through  reading,  to  estimate  //;? 
jim  port  ion  and  relation  in  what  we  read.  If  we 
read  but  a  very  little,  we  naturally  want  to  press  it 
all;  if  we  read  a  great  deal,  we  are  willing  not  to 
press  the  whole  of  what  we  read,  and  we  learn  what 
ought  to  be  pressed  and  what  not.  Xow  this  is 
really  the  very  foundation  of  any  sane  criticism. 
We  have  told  the  Dissenters  that  their  "  spirit  of 
watchful  jenlonsy  "  is  wholly  destructive  and  exclu- 
sive of  th<>  spirit  of  Christianity.  They  answer  us, 
that  St.  Paul  talks  of  "  a  goodly  jealousy,"  and  that 
Christ  uses  severe  invectives  against  the  Scribes  and 
Pharisees.  The  Dissenters  conclude,  therefore,  that 
their  jealousy  is  Christian.  And  so,  too,  as  to  the 
frank,  unvarnished  language  of  Mr.  Mi  all  at  home, 
Mr.  Miall  speaking  out  of  the  abundance  of  his 


PREFACE.  15 

heart  as  a  Dissenter  to  Dissenters,  before  he  draped 
himself  philosophically  for  the  House  of  Commons 
and  the  world  in  his  garment  of  blazing  principles, 
as  messenger  and  minister  of  the  sublime  truth,  that 
the  best  way  to  get  religion  known  and  honored  is 
to  abolish  all  national  recognition  of  it.  "  A  State 
Church !  "  cries  the  real  Mr.  Miall ;  "  have  people 
never  pondered  upon  the  practical  meaning  of  that 
word  ?  have  they  never  looked  into  that  dark,  pol- 
luted inner  chamber  of  which  it  is  the  door?  have 
they  never  caught  a  glimpse  of  the  loathsome  things 
that  live  and  crawl  and  gender  there?  "  This,  I  say, 
the  Dissenters  think  Christian,  because  covered  by 
Christ's  use  of  invective. 

Xow,  there  can  be  no  doubt  whatever,  that  in  his 
invectives  against  the  Scribes  and  Pharisees  Christ 
abandoned  the  mild,  uncontentious  winning,  inward 
mode  of  working  (He  shall  not  strive  nor  cry!) 
which  was  his  true  characteristic,  and  in  which  his 
charm  and  power  lay;  and  that  there  was  no  chance 
at  all  of  his  gaining  by  such  invectives  the  persons 
at  whom  they  were  launched.  The  same  may  be 
said  of  the  cases  where  St.  Paul  lets  loose  his  "  godly 
jealousy,"  and  employs  objurgation  instead  of  the 
mildness  which  was  Christ's  means,  and  which  Paul 
— though  himself  no  special  adept  at  it — nevertheless 
appreciated  so  worthily,  and  so  earnestly  extols.  St. 
Paul  certainly  had  no  chance  of  convincing  those 
whom  he  calls  "  dogs,"  the  "  concision,"  utterers  of 
"  profane  and  vain  babblings,"  by  such  a  manner  of 
dealing  with  them. 


16  PREFACE. 

What  may,  indeed,  fairly  be  said  is,  that  the  Phar- 
isees against  whom  Jesus  denounced  his  wo(.-s,  or  the 
Judaizers  against  whom  Paul  fulminated,  were  peo- 
ple whom  there  could  be  no  hope  of  gaining;  and 
that  not  their  conversion,  but  a  strong  impression  on 
the  faithful  who  read  or  heard,  was  the  thing  aimed 
at,  and  very  rightly  aimed  at.  And  so  far,  at  any 
rate,  as  Christ's  use  of  invective  against  the  Phari- 
sees is  concerned,  this  may  be  quite  true ;  but  what  a 
criticism  is  that  which  can  gather  hence  any  general 
defence  of  jealousy  and  objurgation  as  Christian,  or 
any  particular  defence  of  them  as  we  see  the  Dissen- 
ters and  Mr.  Miall  using  them !  For,  in  the  first 
place,  such  weapons  can  have  no  defence  at  all  ex- 
cept as  employed  against  individuals  who  are  past 
hope,  or  against  institutions  which  are  palpably  mon- 
strosities; they  can  have  none  as  employed  against 
institutions  containing  at  least  half  a  great  na- 
tion, and  therefore  a  multitude  of  individuals 
good  as  well  as  bad.  And  therefore  we  see  that 
Christ  never  dreamed  of  assailing  the  Jewish 
Church;  all  he  cared  for  was  to  transform  it,  by 
transforming  as  many  as  were  transformable  of  the 
individuals  composing  it.  In  the  second  place,  when 
such  means  of  action  have  a  defence,  they  are  defen- 
sible although  violations  of  Christ's  established  rule 
of  working,  never  commendable  as  exemplifications 
of  it.  Mildness  and  sweet  reasonableness  is  the  one 
established  rule  for  Christian  working,  and  no 
other  rule  has  it  or  can  it  have.  But,  using  the  Bible 
in  the  mechanical  and  helpless  way  in  which  one 


PREFACE.  17 

uses  it  when  one  has  hardly  any  other  book,  men  fail 
to  see  this,  clear  as  it  is.  And  they  do  really  come 
to  imagine  that  the  Dissenters'  "  spirit  of  watchful 
jealousy "  may  be  a  Christian  temper ;  or  that  a 
movement  like  Mr.  MialPs  crusade  against  the 
Church  of  England  may  be  a  Christian  work.  And 
it  is  in  this  way  that  Christianity  gets  discredited. 

]SVw,  simple  as  it  is,  it  is  not  half  enough  under- 
stood, this  reason  for  culture;  namely,  that  to  read 
to  good  purpose  we  must  read  a  great  deal,  and  be 
content  not  to  use  a  great  deal  of  what  we  read.  We 
shall  never  be  content  not  to  use  the  whole,  or  nearly 
the  whole,  of  what  we  read,  unless  we  read  a  great 
deal.  Yet  things  are  on  such  a  scale,  and  progress 
is  so  gradual,  and  what  one  man  can  do  is  so 
bounded,  that  the  moment  we  press  the  whole  of  what 
any  writer  says  we  fall  into  error.  He  touches  a 
great  deal ;  the  thing  to  know  is  where  he  is  all  him- 
self and  his  best  self,  where  he  shows  his  power, 
where  he  goes  to  the  heart  of  the  matter,  where  he 
gives  us  what  no  other  man  gives  us,  or  gives  us  so 
well.  In  his  valuable  "  Church  History,"  Dr. 
Stoughton  says  of  Hooker :  "  The  Puritan  princi- 
ple of  the  authority  and  unchangeableness  of  a  re- 
vealed Church  polity  Honker  substantially  admits. 
Although  this  deep  thinker  sometimes  talks  perilous- 
ly of  altering  Christ's  laws,  he  says :  '  In  the  matter 
of  external  discipline  itself,  we  do  not  deny  but  there 
are  some  things  whereto  the  Church  is  bound  till  the 
world's  end.' '  Dr.  Stoughton  does  not  see  that  to 
use  his  Hooker  in  this  way  is  entirely  fallacious; 
2 


18  PREFACE. 

Hooker,  this  "  deep  thinker,"  as  Dr.  Stoughton  truly 
calls  him,  one  of  the  four  great  names  of  the  English 
Church,  is  great  by  having,  signally  and  above 
others,  or  before  others  and  when  others  had  not,  the 
sense,  in  religion,  of  history,  of  historic  development. 
So  Butler  is  great  by  having  the  sense  of  philosophy, 
Barrow  by  having  that  of  morals,  Wilson  that  of 
practical  Christianity.  But  if  Hooker  spoke,  as  lie 
did,  of  Church  history  like  a  historian,  and  exploded 
the  Puritan  figment,  due  to  a  defective  historic  souse, 
of  a  revealed  Church  polity,  a  Scriptural  Church 
order, — if  Hooker  did  this,  this  was  so  new  that  he 
could  not  possibly  do  it  without  reservations,  limi- 
tations, apologies ;  he  could  not  help  saying,  "  We  do 
not  deny  there  may  be  some  external  things  where- 
unto  the  Church  is  eternally  bound."  But  he  is 
truly  himself,  he  is  the  great  Hooker,  the  man  from 
whom  we  learn  when  he  shatters  the  Puritan  error, 
not  when  he  uses  the  language  of  compliment  and 
ceremony  after  shattering  it. 

In  like  manner  that  eloquent  orator,  Mr.  Liddon, 
looking  about  him  for  authorities  which  commend 
the  Athanasian  Creed,  finds  Hooker  commending  it, 
and  quotes  him  as  an  authority.  This,  again,  is  to 
make  a  use  of  Hooker  which  has  no  soundness  in  it. 
Hooker's  greatness  is  that  he  gives  the  real  method 
of  criticism  for  Church  dogma,  the  historic  method. 
Church  dogma  is  not  written  in  black  and  white  in 
the  Bible,  he  says;  it  has  t«>  lie  rnlleeted  from  it;  it  is, 
as  we  now  say,  a  development  from  it.  This  and 
that  dogma,  says  Hooker,  *'  are  in  Scripture  nowhere 


PREFACE.  19 

to  be  found  by  express  literal  mention,  only  deduced 
they  are  out  of  Scripture  by  collection."  And  he 
assigns  one  right  criterion  for  determining  whether 
a  dogma  is  justly  deduced,  and  what  Scripture 
moans,  and  what  is  its  true  character:  the  criterion 
of  reason.  He  assigns  this  with  splendid  boldness: 
"  It  is  not  the  word  of  God  itself,"  says  he,  "  which 
doth,  or  possibly  can,  assure  us  that  we  do  well  to 
think  it  his  word ;  "  no,  it  is  reason,  much-reviled 
reason.  Surely  this  is  enough  to  expect  a  sixteenth- 
century  divine  to  give  us  in  theology, — the  very 
method  of  true  science!  without  expecting  him  to 
make  the  full  application  of  it, without  expecting  him 
to  say  that  the  Church  dogmas  of  his  time,  the  dogma 
of  the  Athanasian  Creed  among  the  rest,  which  were 
not  seriously  in  question  yet,  on  which  the  Time- 
Spirit  had  not  then  turned  his  light,  were  false  devel- 
opments ;  without  wondering  at  his  saying  that  they 
were  developments,  "  the  necessity  whereof  is  by  none 
denied !  "  This  is  all  that  Hooker's  warranty  of  the 
Athanasian  Creed  really  comes  to,  or  can  come  to. 
To  fix  the  method  by  which  the  creed  must  finally 
be  judged  was  the  main  issue  for  him ;  to  judge  the 
Creed  by  that  method  was  a  side  issue,  whereon  he 
never  really  entered  nor  could  enter,  but  treated  the 
thing  as  already  settled.  Therefore  Hooker  is  no 
real  authority  in  favor  of  the  Athanasian  Creed; 
though  we  might  think  he  was  if  we  read  him  with- 
out discrimination.  And  to  read  him  with  discrim- 
ination, culture  is  necessary. 

Luther,  again,  Mr.  Liddon  cites  as  a  witness  on 


20  PREFACE. 

the  question  of  the  Athanasian  Creed ;  and  he  might 
as  well  cite  him  as  a  witness  on  the  question  of  the 
origin  of  species.  Luther's  greatness  is  in  his  re- 
vival of  the  sense  of  conscience  and  personal  respon- 
sibility, and  in  the  fresh  vigorous  power  which  this 
sense,  joined  to  his  robust  mother-wit,  gave  him  in 
using  the  Bible.  He  had  enough  to  do  in  attack- 
ing Romish  developments  from  the  Bible,  which 
by  their  practical  side  were  evidently,  to  a  plain 
moral  sense  and  a  plain  mother-wit,  false  develop- 
ments without  attacking  speculative  dogma,  which 
had  no  visible  connection  with  practice,  which  had 
all  antiquity  in  its  favor,  on  which,  as  we  say,  the 
Time-Spirit  had  not  then  turned  his  light,  of  which 
— so  Luther  might  say,  like  Hooker — "  the  necessity 
is  by  none  denied."  All  this  high  speculative  dogma 
he  could  not  but  affirm,  and  the  more  emphatically 
the  more  he  questioned  lower  practical  dogma.  But 
his  affirmation  of  it  is  not  one  of  those  things  wo 
can  use;  and  whoever  reads  in  the  folios  of  Luther'- 
works  without  passing  lightly  over  very  much,  and, 
amongst  it,  over  this,  reads  there  ill.  And  without 
culture,  without  the  use  of  so  many  books  that  ho 
can  afford  not  to  over-use  and  mis-use  one,  ill  a  man 
is  likely  to  read  there. 

We  can  hardly  urge  this  topic  too  much,  of  so 
great  a  practical  importance  is  it,  and  above  all  at 
the  present  time.  To  be  able  to  control  what  one 
reads  by  means  of  the  tact  coming,  in  a  clear  ami 
fair  mind,  from  a  wide  experience,  was  never  per 
haps  so  necessary  as  in  the  England  of  our  own  day. 


PREFACE.  21 

and  in  theology,  and  in  what  concerns  the  Bible. 
To  get  the  facts,  the  data,  in  all  matters  of  science, 
but  notably  in  theology  and  Biblical  learning,  one 
goes  to  Germany.  Germany,  and  it  is  her  high 
honor,  has  searched  out  the  facts  and  exhibited  them. 
And  without  knowledge  of  the  facts,  no  clearness  or 
fairness  of  mind  can  in  any  study  do  anything;  this 
cannot  be  laid  down  too  rigidly.  iSFow,  English  re- 
ligion does  not  know  the  facts  of  its  study,  and  has 
to  go  to  Germany  for  them ;  this  is  half  apparent  to 
English  religion  even  now,  and  it  will  become  more 
and  more  apparent.  And  so  overwhelming  is  the 
advantage  given  by  knowing  the  facts  of  a  study, 
that  a  student  who  comes  to  a  man  who  knows  them 
is  tempted  to  put  himself  into  his  hands  altogether; 
and  this  we  in  general  see  English  students  do,  when 
they  have  recourse  to  the  theologians  of  Germany. 
They  put  themselves  altogether  into  their  hands,  and 
take  all  that  they  give  them,  conclusions  as  well  as 
facts. 

But  they  ought  not  to  use  them  in  this  manner; 
for  a  man  may  have  the  facts  and  yet  be  unable  to 
draw  the  right  conclusions  from  them.  In  general, 
he  may  want  power;  as  one  may  say  of  Dr.  Strauss, 
for  instance,  that  to  what  is  unsolid  in  the  ISTew  Tes- 
tament he  applies  the  historic  method  ably  enough, 
but  that  to  deal  with  the  reality  which  is  still  left  in 
the  TsTew  Testament,  requires  a  larger,  richer,  deeper, 
more  imaginative  mind  than  his.  But  perhaps  the 
quality  specially  needed  for  drawing  the  right  con- 
clusion from  the  facts,  when  one  has  got  them,  is 


22  PREFACE. 

best  called  perception,  delicacy  of  perception.  And 
this  no  man  can  have  who  is  a  mere  specialist,  who 
has  not  what  we  call  culture  in  addition  to  the  knowl- 
edge of  his  particular  study;  and  many  theolo- 
gians, in  Germany  as  well  as  elsewhere,  are  spe- 
cialists. And  even  when  we  have  added  culture  to 
special  knowledge,  a  good  fortune,  a  natural 
tact,  a  perception,  must  go  with  our  culture,  to  make 
our  criticism  sure.  And  here  is  what  renders  crit- 
icism so  large  a  thing:  namely,  that  learning  alone 
is  not  enough,  one  must  have  perception  too.  "  I 
wisdom,  dwell  with  subtlety"  says  the  Wise  Afan; 
and,  taking  subtlety  in  a  good  sense,  this  is  most 
true.  After  we  have  acquainted  ourselves  with  the 
best  that  has  been  known  in  the  world,  after  we  have 
got  all  the  facts  of  our  special  study,  fineness  and 
delicacy  of  perception  to  deal  with  the  facts  is  still 
required,  and  is,  even,  the  principal  thing  of  all. 

And  in  this  the  German  mind,  if  one  may  speak 
in  swli  a  general  way,  does  seem  to  be  somewhat 
wanting.  In  the  German  mind,  as  in  the  German 
language,  there  does  seem  to  be  something  spiny. 
something  blunt-edged,  unhandy,  and  infelicitous, 
— some  want  of  quick,  fine,  sure  perception,  which 
tends  to  balance  the  great  superiority  of  the  Ger- 
mans in  knowledge,  and  in  the  disposition  to  deal 
impartially  with  knowledge.  For  impartial  they  are, 
as  well  as  learned  ;  and  this  is  a  signal  merit.  While 
M.  Hartheleniv  St.-IIilaire  cannot  translate  Aristotle 
without  dragging  in  his  pompous  and  false  plati- 
tudes in  glorification  of  the  French  gospel  of  the 


PREFACE.  23 

Rights  of  Man,  while  one  English  historian  writes 
history  to  extol  the  Whigs  and  another  to  execrate 
the  Church,  German  workers  proceed  in  a  more  phil- 
osophical fashion.  Still,  in  quickness  and  delicacy 
of  perception  they  do  seem  to  come  short. 

Of  course  in  a  man  of  genius  this  delicacy  and 
dexterity  of  perception  is  much  less  lacking;  but 
even  in  Germans  of  genius  there  seems  some  lack  of 
it.  Goethe,  for  instance,  has  less  of  it,  one  must  surely 
own,  than  the  great  men  of  other  nations  whom 
alone  one  can  cite  as  his  literary  compeers :  Shake- 
speare, Voltaire,  Macchiavel,  Cicero,  Plato.  Or,  to 
go  a  little  lower  down,  compare  Bentley  as  a  critic 
with  Hermann ;  Bentley  treating  Menander  with 
Hermann  treating  Aeschylus.  Both  are  on  ground 
favorable  to  them ;  both  know  thoroughly,  one  may 
say,  the  facts  of  their  case ;  yet  such  is  the  difference 
between  them,  somehow,  in  dexterousness  and  sure- 
ness  of  perception,  that  the  gifted  English  scholar 
is  wrong  hardly  ever,  whereas  the  gifted  German 
scholar  is  wrong  very  often.  And  then  every  learned 
German  is  not  gifted,  is  not  a  man  of  genius. 
Whether  it  be,  as  we  have  elsewhere  speculated,* 
from  race;  or  whether  this  quickness  and  sureness 
of  perception  comes,  rather,  from  a  long  practical 
conversance  with  great  affairs,  and  only  those  nations 
which  have  at  any  time  had  a  practical  lead  of  the 
civilized  world,  the  Greeks,  the  Romans,  the  Ital- 
ians, the  French,  the  English,  can  have  it ;  and  the 
Germans  have  till  now  had  no  such  practical  lead, 
*  On  the  Study  of  Celtic  Literature,  p.  97. 


L>4  PREFACE. 

though  now  they  have  got  it,  and  may  now,  therefore, 
acquire  the  practical  dexterity  of  perception ;  how- 
ever this  may  be,  the  thing  is  so,  and  a  learned  Ger- 
man has  by  no  means,  in  general,  a  fine  and  practic- 
ally sure  perception  in  proportion  to  his  learning. 
Give  a  Frenchman,  an  Italian,  an  Englishman,  the 
same  knowledge  of  the  facts,  and  you  could,  in  gen- 
eral, trust  his  perception  more  than  you  can  the  Ger- 
man's. This,  I  say,  shows  how  large  a  thing  criti- 
cism is;  since  even  of  those  from  whom  we  take  what 
we  now  in  theology  most  want,  knowledge  of  the 
facts  of  our  study,  and  to  whom  therefore  we  are, 
and  ought  to  be,  under  deep  obligations,  even  of 
them  we  must  not  take  too  much,  or  take  anything 
like  all  that  they  offer;  but  we  must  take  much  and 
leave  much,  and  must  have  experience  enough  to 
know  what  to  take  and  what  to  leave.  And  without 
culture  we  cannot  have  this  experience;  although  it 
is  true  that  even  culture  itself,  without  good  fortune 
and  tact,  will  not  fully  give  it.  Still,  our  best  and 
only  chance  of  it  is  through  means  of  culture. 

But  it  is  for  the  Bible  itself  that  this  discrimina- 
tive experience,  so  necessary  in  all  our  theological 
studies  is  most  needed.  And  to  our  popular  religion 
it  is  especially  difficult;  because  we  have  been 
trained  to  regard  the  Bible,  not  as  a  book  whose  parts 
have  varying  degrees  of  value,  but  as  the  .I<-\vs  came 
to  regard  their  scriptures,  as  a  sort  of  talisman  given 
dn\vn  to  us  out  of  Heaven,  with  all  its  parts  equi- 
pollent. And  yet  there  was  a  time  when  Jews  knc\7 
well  the  vast  difference  there  is  between  books  like 


PREFACE.  25 

Esther,  Chronicles,  or  Daniel,  and  books  like  Gene- 
sis or  Isaiah,  there  was  a  time  when  Christians  knew 
well  the  vast  difference  between  the  First  Epistle 
of  Peter  and  his  so-called  Second  Epistle,  or  between 
the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  and  the  Epistles  to  the 
Romans  or  the  Corinthians.  This,  indeed,  is  what 
makes  the  religious  watchword  of  the  British  and 
Foreign  School  Society:  The  Bible,  the  whole 
Bible,  and  nothing  but  the  Bible!  so  ingeniously 
(one  must  say  it)  absurd;  it  is  treating  the  Bible 
as  Mahometans  treat  the  Koran,  as  if  it  were  a 
talisman  all  of  one  piece,  and  with  all  its  sentences 
equipollent. 

Yet  the  very  expressions,  Canon  of  Scripture, 
Canonical  Books,  recall  a  time  when  degrees  of  value 
were  still  felt,  and  all  parts  of  the  Bible  did  not 
stand  on  the  same  footing,  and  were  not  taken 
equally.  There  was  a  time  when  books  were  read 
as  part  of  the  Bible  which  are  in  no  Bible  now; 
there  was  a  time  when  books,  which  are  in  every 
Bible  now,  were  by  many  disallowed  as  genuine 
parts  of  the  Bible.  St.  Athanasius  rejected  the  Book 
of  Esther,  and  the  Greek  Christianity  of  the  East 
repelled  the  Apocalypse,  and  the  Latin  Christianity 
of  the  West  repelled  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews. 
And  a  true  critical  sense  of  relative  value  lay  at 
the  bottom  of  all  these  rejections.  No  one  re- 
jected Isaiah  or  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans ;  the  books 
rejected  were  such  books  as  those  which  we  now 
print  as  the  Apocrypha,  or  as  the  Book  of  Esther, 
or  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebmvs,  or  the  so-called  Epis- 


26  PREFACE. 

tic  of  Judc,  or  the  so-called  Second  Epistle  of  St. 
Peter,  or  the  two  short  Epistles  following  the  main 
.K | little  attributed  to  St.  John,  or  the  Apocalypse. 

Xow,  whatever,  value  one  may  assign  to  these 
works,  no  sound  critic  would  rate  their  intrinsic 
worth  as  high  as  that  of  the  great  undisputed  hooks 
of  the  Bible.  And  so  far  from  their  finally  getting 
where  they  are  after  a  thorough  trial  of  their  claims, 
and  with  indisputable  propriety,  they  got  placed  by 
the  force  of  circumstances,  by  chance  or  by  routine, 
rather  than  on  their  merits.  Indeed,  by  merit  alone 
the  Book  of  Esther  could  have  now  no  right  to  be  in 
our  Canon  while  Ecclesiasticus  is  not,  nor  the  Epis- 
tle of  Jude  and  the  Second  Epistle  of  Peter  rather 
than  the  Epistle  of  Clement.  But  the  whole  discus- 
sion died  out,  not  because  the  matter  was  sifted  and 
settled  and  a  perfect  Canon  of  Scripture  deliberately 
formed ;  it  died  out  as  mediaeval  ignorance  deep- 
ened, and  because  there  was  no  longer  knowledge  or 
criticism  enough  left  in  the  world  to  keep  such  a  dis- 
cussion alive. 

And  so  things  went  on  till  the  Renascence,  when 
criticism  came  to  life  again.  But  the  Church  had 
now  long  since  adopted  the  Vulgate,  and  her  author- 
ity was  concerned  in  maintaining  what  she  had 
adopted.  Luther  and  Calvin,  on  the  other  hand, 
recurred  to  the  old  true  notion  of  a  difference  in  rank 
and  genuineness  among  the  Bible  books.  For  they 
both  of  them  insisted  on  the  criterion  of  internal  evi- 
dence for  Scripture:  "the  witness  of  the  Spirit." 
I  low  freely  Luther  used  this  criterion,  we  may  see 


PREFACE.  27 

by  reading  in  the  old  editions  of  his  Bible  his  pref- 
aces, which  in  succeeding  editions  have  long  ceased 
to  appear;  whether  he  used  it  aright  we  do  not  now 
inquire,  but  he  used  it  freely.  Taunted,  however, 
by  Rome  with  their  divisions,  their  want  of  a  fixed 
authority  like  the  Church,  Protestants  were  driven 
to  make  the  Bible  this  fixed  authority ;  and  so 
the  Bible  came  to  be  regarded  as  a  thing 
all  of  a  piece,  endued  with  talismanic  virtues.  It 
came  to  be  regarded  as  something  different  from 
anything  it  had  originally  ever  been,  or  primi- 
tive times  had  ever  imagined  it  to  be.  And  Protes- 
tants did  practically  in  this  way  use  the  Bible  more 
irrationally  than  Rome  practically  ever  used  it ;  for 
Rome  had  her  hypothesis  of  the  Church  Catholic  en- 
dued with  talismanic  virtues,  and  did  not  want  a 
talismanic  Bible  too.  All  this  has  made  a  discrim- 
inating use  of  the  Bible-documents  very  difficult  in 
our  country ;  yet  without  it  a  sound  criticism  of  the 
Bible  is  impossible,  and  even,  as  we  say,  the  very 
word  Canon,  the  Canon  of  Scripture,  points  to  such 
a  use. 

But,  indeed,  there  is  hardly  any  great  thing  per- 
verted by  men,  which  does  not  in  some  sort  thus 
indicate  its  own  perversion.  The  idea  of  the  infal- 
lible Church  Catholic  itself,  as  we  have  elsewhere 
said,*  is  an  idea  the  most  fatal  of  all  possible  ideas 
to  the  concrete  so-called  infallible  Church  of  Rome, 
such  as  we  see  it.  The  infallible  Church  Catholic, 
is  really,  tlie,  prophetic  soul  of  the  wide  world  dream- 
*  St,  Paul  and  Protestantism,  p.  156. 


28  PREFACE. 

ing  on  things  to  come;  the  whole  race,  in  its  onward 
progress,  developing  truth  more  complete  than  the 
parcel  of  truth  any  momentary  individual  can  seize. 
Nay,  even  that  amiable  old  pessimist  in  St.  Peter's 
Chair,  whose  allocutions  we  read  and  call  them  im- 
potent and  vain, — the  Pope  himself  is,  in  his  idea, 
the  very  Time-Spirit  taking  flesh,  the  incarnate 
"  Zeit-Geist !  "  O  man,  how  true  are  thine  instincts, 
how  over-hasty  thine  interpretations  of  them ! 

But  to  return.  Difficult,  certainly,  is  the  right 
reading  of  the  Bible,  and  true  culture,  too,  is  difficult. 
For  true  culture  implies  not  only  knowledge,  but 
right  tact  and  delicacy  of  judgment,  forming  them- 
selves by  knowledge ;  without  this  tact  it  is  not  true 
culture.  Difficult,  however,  as  culture  is,  it  is  nec- 
essary. For,  after  all,  the  Bible  is  not  a  talisman, 
to  be  taken  and  used  literally;  neither  is  any  exist- 
ing Church  a  talisman,  whatever  pretensions  of  the 
sort  it  may  make,  for  giving  the  right  interpretation 
of  the  Bible.  Only  true  culture  can  give  us  this ;  so 
that  if  conduct  is,  as  it  is,  inextricably  bound  up 
with  the  Bible  and  the  right  interpretation  of  it, 
then  the  importance  of  culture  becomes  unshakable. 
For  if  conduct  is  necessary  (and  there  is  nothing  so 
necessary),  culture  is  necessary. 

And  the  poor  require  it  as  much  as  the  rich;  an-1 
at  present  their  education,  even  when  they  get  edu- 
cation, gives  them  hardly  anything  of  it.  Yet  hardly 
less  of  it,  perhaps,  than  the  education  of  the  rich 
gives  to  the  rich.  For  when  we  say  that  culture  is, 
to  know  the  best  that  has  been  thovqlit  <nnl  xnid  in 


PREFACE.  29 

the  world,  we  imply  that,  for  culture,  a  system  di- 
rectly tending  to  this  end  is  necessary  in  our  read- 
ing. Now,  there  is  no  such  system  yet  present  to 
guide  the  reading  of  the  rich  any  more  than  of  the 
poor.  Such  a  system  is  hardly  even  thought  of;  a 
man  who  wants  it  must  make  it  for  himself.  And 
our  reading  being  so  without  purpose  as  it  is,  nothing 
can  be  truer  than  what  Butler  says,  that  really,  in 
general,  no  part  of  our  time  is  more  idly  spent  than 
the  time  spent  in  reading. 

Still,  culture  is  indispensably  necessary,  and  cul- 
ture is  reading;  but  reading  with  a  purpose  to  guide 
it,  and  with  system.  He  does  a  good  work  who  does 
anything  to  help  this ;  indeed,  it  is  the  one  essential 
service  now  to  be  rendered  to  education.  And  the 
plea,  that  this  or  that  man  has  no  time  for  culture, 
will  vanish  as  soon  as  we  desire  culture  so  much  that 
we  begin  to  examine  seriously  our  present  use  of 
our  time.  It  has  often  been  said,  and  cannot  be  said 
too  often :  Give  to  any  man  all  the  time  that  he  now 
wastes,  not  only  on  his  vices  (when  he  has  them), 
but  on  useless  business,  wearisome  or  deteriorating 
amusements,  trivial  letter-writing,  random  reading, 
and  he  will  have  plenty  of  time  for  culture.  "  Die 
Zeit  ist  unendlich  lany"  says  Goethe ;  and  so  it 
really  is.  Some  of  us  waste  all  of  it,  most  of  us  waste 
much ;  but  all  of  us  waste  some. 


LITERATURE   AND  DOGMA. 


INTRODUCTION. 

MR.  DISRAELI,  treating  Hellenic  things  with  the 
scornful  negligence  natural  to  a  Hebrew,  said  the 
other  day,  in  a  well-known  book,  that  our  aristocratic 
class,  the  polite  flower  of  the  nation,  were  truly 
Hellenic  in  this  respect  among  others, — that  they 
cared  nothing  for  letters,  and  never  read.  Now, 
there  seems  to  be  here  some  inaccuracy,  if  we  take 
our  standard  of  what  is  Hellenic  from  Hellas  at  its 
highest  pitch  of  development;  for  the  latest  histo- 
rian of  Greece,  Dr.  Curtius,  tells  us  that  in  the 
Athens  of  Pericles  "  reading  was  universally  dif- 
fused ;  "  and,  again,  that  "  what  more  than  anything 
distinguishes  the  Greeks  from  the  barbarians  of  an- 
cient and  modern  times,  is  the  idea  of  a  culture  com- 
prehending body  and  soul  in  an  equal  measure." 
And  we  have  ourselves  called  our  aristocratic  class 
barbarians,  which  is  the  contrary  of  Hellenes,  from 
this  very  reason :  because,  with  all  their  fine,  fresh 
appearances,  their  open-air  life,  and  their  love  for 
field-sports,  for  reading  and  thinking  they  have  in 
general  no  turn.  But  no  doubt  Mr.  Disraeli  was 

31 


32  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

thinking  of  the  primitive  Hellenes  of  ^Northwestern 
Greece,  from  among  whom  the  Dorians  of  Pelopon- 
nesus originally  came,  but  who  themselves  remained 
in  their  old  seats,  and  did  not  migrate  and  develop 
like  their  more  famous  brethren ;  and  of  these  primi- 
tive Hellenes,  of  Greeks  like  the  Chaonians  and  Mo- 
lossians,it  is  probably  a  very  just  account  to  give,  that 
they  lived  in  the  open  air,  loved  field-sports,  and  never 
read.  And, explained  in  this  way,  Mr.  Disraeli's  par- 
allel of  our  aristocratic  class  with  what  he  somewhat 
misleadingly  calls  the  old  Hellenic  race,  appears  in- 
genious and  sound ;  to  those  lusty  northerners,  the 
Molossian  or  Chaonian  Greeks, — Greeks  untouched 
by  the  development  which  contra-distinguishes  the 
Hellene  from  the  barbarian, — our  aristocratic  class, 
as  he  exhibits  it,  has  a  strong  resemblance.  At  any 
rate,  this  class — which  from  its  great  possessions,  its 
beauty  and  attractiveness,  the  admiration  felt  for  it 
by  the  Philistines  or  middle-class,  its  actual  power  in 
the  nation,  and  the  still  more  considerable  destinies 
to  which  its  politeness,  in  Mr.  Carlyle's  opinion,  en- 
titles it,  cannot  but  attract  our  notice  pro-eminent ly 
— shows  at  present  a  great  and  genuine  disregard 
for  letters. 

And,  perhaps,  if  there  is  any  other  body  of  men 
which  strikes  one,  even  after  looking  at  our  aristo- 
cratic class,  as  being  in  the  sunshine,  as  e.\ereisin<r 
great  attraction,  as  being  admired  by  the  Philistines 
or  middle-class,  and  as  having  before  it  a  future  still 
more  brilliant  than  its  present,  it  is  the  friends  of 
physical  science.  Now,  their  revolt  agaiu.-t  the  ty- 


INTRODUCTION.  33 

ranriy  of  letters  is  notorious.  To  deprive  letters  of 
the  too  great  place  they  have  hitherto  filled  in  men's 
estimation,  and  to  substitute  other  studies  for  these, 
is  the  object  of  a  sort  of  crusade  with  a  body  of  peo- 
ple important  in  itself,  but  still  more  important  be- 
cause of  the  gifted  leaders  who  march  at  its  head. 

Religion  has  always  hitherto  been  a  great  power  in 
England ;  and,  on  this  account,  perhaps,  whatever 
humiliations  may  be  in  store  for  religion  in  the  fu- 
ture, the  friends  of  physical  science  will  not  object 
to  our  saying  that,  after  them  and  the  aristoc- 
racy, the  leaders  of  the  religious  world  fill  a  promi- 
nent place  in  the  public  eye  even  now,  and  one  can- 
not help  noticing  what  their  opinions  and  likings  are. 
And  it  is  curious  how  the  feeling  of  the  chief  people 
in  the  religious  world,  too,  seems  to  be  just  now 
against  mere  letters,  which  they  slight  as  the  vague 
and  inexact  instrument  of  shallow  essayists  and  mag- 
azine-writers;  and  in  favor  of  dogma  of  a  scien- 
tific and  exact  presentment  of  religious  things,  in- 
stead of  a  literary  presentment  of  them.  "  Dogmat- 
ic theology,"  says  the  "  Guardian,"  speaking  of  our 
existing  dogmatic  theology, — "  dogmatic  theology, 
that  is,  precision  and  definiteness  of  religious 
thought."  "  Maudlin  sentimentalism,"  says  the 
Dean  of  Norwich,  "with  its  miserable  disparage- 
ments of  any  definite  doctrine;  a  nerveless  religion, 
without  the  sinew  and  bone  of  doctrine."  The  dis- 
tinguished Chancellor  of  the  University  of  Oxford 
thought  it  needful  to  tell  us  on  a  public  occasion 
lately  that  "  religion  is  no  more  to  be  served  from 
3 


34:  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

dogma  than  light  from  the  sun."  Every  one,  again, 
remembers  the  Bishops  of  Winchester  and  Gloucester 
making,  in  Convocation,  the  other  day,  their  remark- 
able effort  "  to  do  something,"  as  they  said,  "  for 
the  honor  of  Our  Lord's  Godhead,"  and  to  mark  their 
sense  of  "  that  infinite  separation  for  time  and  for 
eternity  which  is  involved  in  rejecting  the  Godhead 
of  the  Eternal  Son."  In  the  same  way:  "To  no 
teaching,"  says  one  champion  of  dogma,  "  can  the 
appellation  of  Christian  be  truly  given  which  does 
not  involve  the  idea  of  a  Personal  God."  Another 
lays  like  stress  on  correct  ideas  about  the  Personality 
of  the  Holy  Ghost.  "  Our  Lord  unquestionably," 
says  a  third,  "  annexes  eternal  life  to  a  right  knowl- 
edge of  the  Godhead," — that  is,  to  a  right  specula- 
tive, dogmatic  knowledge  of  it.  A  fourth  appeals 
to  history  and  human  nature  for  proof  that  "  an  un- 
dogmatic  Church  can  no  more  satisfy  the  hunger  of 
the  soul  than  a  snowball,  painted  to  look  like  fruit, 
would  stay  the  hunger  of  the  stomach."  And  all 
these  friends  of  theological  science  are,  like  the 
friends  of  physical  science,  though  from  another 
cause,  severe  upon  letters.  Attempts  made  at  a  lit- 
erary treatment  of  religious  history  and  ideas  they 
call  "  a  subverting  of  the  faith  once  delivered  to  the 
saints;"  those  who  make  them  they  speak  of  as 
"  those  who  have  made  shipwreck  of  the  faith ;  "  and 
when  they  talk  of  "  the  poison  openly  disseminated 
by  infidels,"  and  describe  the  "  progress  of  infidel- 
ity," which  more  :md  more,  according  to  their  account, 
"  denies  God,  rejects  Christ,  and  lets  loose  every 


INTRODUCTION.  35 

• 

human  passion,"  though  they  have  the  audacious- 
ness of  physical  science  most  in  their  eye,  yet  they 
have  a  direct  aim,  too,  at  the  looseness  and  danger- 
ous temerity  of  letters. 

Keeping  in  remembrance  the  Scriptural  comment 
on  the  young  man  who  had  great  possessions,  to  be 
able  to  work  a  change  of  mind  in  our  aristocratic 
class  we  never  have  pretended,  we  never  shall  pre- 
tend. But  to  the  friends  of  physical  science  and  to 
the  friends  of  dogma  we  do  feel  emboldened,  after 
giving  our  best  consideration  to  the  matter,  to  say 
a  few  words  on  behalf  of  letters,  and  in  deprecation 
of  the  slight  which,  on  different  grounds,  they  both 
put  upon  them. 

But  particularly  to  the  friends  of  dogma  do  we 
wish  to  insist  on  the  case  for  letters,  because  of 
the  great  issues  which  seem  to  us  to  be  here  in- 
volved. Therefore  we  shall  take  leave,  in  spite  of 
modern  fashions,  still  to  treat  theology  with  so  much 
respect  as  to  give  her  the  first  place;  and  with  the 
subject  of  the  present  volume,  "  literature  and 
dogma"  we  shall  make  our  beginning. 

2. 

IT  is  clear  that  dogmatists  love  religion, — for  else 
why  do  they  occupy  themselves  with  it  so  much,  and 
make  it,  most  of  them,  the  business,  even  the  profes- 
sional business,  of  their  lives  ? — and  clearly  religion 
seeks  man's  salvation.  How  distressing,  therefore, 
must  it  be  to  them  to  think  that  "  salvation  is  unques- 


36  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

tionably  annexed  to  a  right  knowledge  of  the  God- 
head," and  that  a  right  knowledge  of  the  Godhead 
depends  upon  reasoning,  for  which  so  many  people 
have  not  much  aptitude;  and  iipon  reasoning  from 
.  ideas  or  terms,  such  as  substance,  identity,  causation, 
design,  about  which  there  is  endless  disagreement! 
It  is  true,  a  right  knowledge  of  geometry  also  de- 
pends upon  reasoning,  and  many  people  never  get 
it;  but  then,  in  the  first  place,  salvation  is  not  an- 
nexed to  a  right  knowledge  of  geometry;  and  in  the 
second,  the  ideas  or  terms,  such  as  point,  line,  angle, 
from  which  we  reason  in  geometry,  are  terms  about 
which  there  is  no  ambiguity  or  disagreement  But 
as  to  the  demonstrations  and  terms  of  theology  we 
cannot  comfort  ourselves  in  this  manner.  How 
must  this  thought  mar  the  Archbishop  of  York's  en- 
joyment of  such  a  solemnity  as  that  in  which,  to  up- 
hold and  renovate  religion,  he  lectured  lately  to  Lord 
Harrowby,  Dean  Payne  Smith,  and  other  kindred 
souls,  upon  the  theory  of  causation  !  And  what  a 
consolation  to  us,  who  are  so  perpetually  beinir 
taunted  with  our  known  inaptitude  for  abstruse  rea 
soning,  if  we  can  find  that  for  this  great  concern  of 
religion,  at  any  rate,  abstruse  reasoning  does  not 
seem  to  be  the  appointed  help,  and  that  as  good  or 
better  a  help — for,  indeed,  there  can  hardly,  to  jndire 
by  the  present  state  of  things,  he  a  worse — may  he 
something  which  is  in  an  ordinary  man's  power! 

For  the  good  of  letters  is  that  they  require  no  ex- 
traordinary acuteness  such  as  is  required  to  handle 
the  theory  of  causation  like  the  Archbishop  of  York, 


INTRODUCTION.  37 

or  the  doctrine  of  the  Godhead  of  the  Eternal  Son 
like  the  Bishops  of  Winchester  and  Gloucester.  The 
good  of  letters  may  be  had  without  skill  in  arguing, 
or  that  formidable  logical  apparatus,  not  unlike  a 
guillotine,  which  Professor  Huxley  speaks  of  some- 
where as  the  young  man's  best  companion, — and  so 
it  would  be,  no  doubt,  if  all  wisdom  were  come  at  by 
hard  reasoning;  in  that  case,  all  who  could  not  man- 
age this  apparatus  (and  only  a  few  picked  crafts- 
men can  manage  it)  would  be  in  a  pitiable  condition. 

But  the  valuable  thing  in  letters — that  is,  in  the 
acquainting  one's  self  with  the  best  which  has  been 
thought  and  said  in  the  world — is,  as  we  have  often 
remarked,  the  judgment  which  forms  itself  insensibly 
in  a  fair  mind  along  with  fresh  knowledge ;  and  this 
judgment  almost  any  one  with  a  fair  mind,  who  will 
but  trouble  himself  to  try  and  make  acquaintance 
with  the  best  which  has  been  thought  and  uttered  in 
the  world,  may,  if  he  is  lucky,  hope  to  attain  to. 
For  this  judgment  comes  almost  of  itself;  and  what 
it  displaces  it  displaces  easily  and  naturally,  and 
without  any  turmoil  of  controversial  reasonings. 
The  thing  comes  to  look  differently  to  us,  as  we  look 
at  it  by  the  light  of  fresh  knowledge.  We  are  not 
beaten  from  our  old  opinion  by  logic,  we  are  not 
driven  off  our  ground;  our  ground  itself  changes 
with  us. 

Far  more  of  our  mistakes  come  from  want  of  fresh 
knowledge  than  from  want  of  correct  reasoning;  and, 
therefore,  letters  meet  a  greater  want  in  us  than  does 
logic.  The  idea  of  a  triangle  is  a  definite  and  ascer- 


38  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

tained  thing,  and  to  deduce  the  properties  of  a  tri- 
angle from  it  is  an  affair  of  reasoning.  There  are 
heads  unapt  for  this  sort  of  work,  and  some  of  the 
blundering  to  be  found  in  the  world  is  from  this 
cause.  But  how  far  more  of  the  blundering  to  be 
found  in  the  world  comes  from  people  fancying  that 
some  idea  is  a  definite  and  ascertained  thing,  like  the 
idea  of  a  triangle,  when  it  is  not ;  and  proceeding  to 
deduce  properties  from  it,  and  to  do  battle  about 
them,  when  their  first  start  was  a  mistake !  And 
how  liable  are  people  with  a  talent  for  hard,  abstruse 
reasoning  to  be  tempted  to  this  mistake!  And  what 
can  clear  up  such  a  mistake  except  a  wide  and  fa- 
miliar acquaintance  with  the  human  spirit  and  its 
productions,  showing  how  ideas  and  terms  arose,  and 
what  is  their  character?  and  this  is  letters  and  his- 
tory, not  logic. 

So  that  minds  with  small  aptitude  for  abstruse 
reasoning  may  yet,  through  letters,  gain  some  hold 
on  sound  judgment  and  useful  knowledge,  and  may 
even  clear  up  blunders  committed,  out  of  their  very 
excess  of  talent,  by  the  athletes  of  logic. 


CHAPTER  I. 

RELIGION    GIVEN. 

WE  have  said  elsewhere*  how  much  it  has  con- 
tributed to  the  misunderstanding  of  St.  Paul,  that 
terms  like  grace,  new  birth,  justification, — which  he 
used  in  a  fluid  and  passing  way,  as  men  use  terms  in 
common  discourse  or  in  eloquence  and  poetry,  to  de- 
scribe approximately,  but  only  approximately,  what 
they  have  present  before  their  mind,  but  do  not  pro- 
fess that  their  mind  does  or  can  grasp  exactly  or  ade- 
quately,— that  such  terms  people  have  blunderingly 
taken  in  a  fixed  and  rigid  manner,  as  if  they  were 
symbols  with  as  definite  and  fully  grasped  a  mean- 
ing as  the  names  line  or  angle,  and  proceeded  to  use 
them  on  this  supposition ;  terms,  in  short,  which  with 
St.  Paul  are  literary  terms,  theologians  have  em- 
ployed as  if  they  were  scientific  terms. 

But  if  one  desires  to  deal  with  this  mistake  thor- 
oughly, one  must  observe  it  in  that  supreme  term 
with  which  religion  is  filled, — the  term  God.  The 
seemingly  incurable  ambiguity  in  the  mode  of  em- 
ploying this  word  is  at  the  root  of  all  our  religious 
differences  and  difficulties.  People  use  it  as  if  it 

*  Culture  and  Anarchy,  p.  178. 
39 


4-u  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

stood  for  a  perfectly  definite  and  ascertained  idea, 
from  which  we  might,  without  more  ado,  extract 
propositions  and  draw  inferences,  just  as  we  should 
from  any  other  definite  and  ascertained  idea.  For 
instance,  I  open  a  book  which  controverts  what  its 
author  thinks  dangerous  views  about  religion,  and 
I  read :  "  Our  sense  of  morality  tells  us  so  and  so ; 
our  sense  of  God,  on  the  other  hand,  tells  us  so  and 
so."  And  again,  "  the  impulse  in  man  to  seek  God  " 
is  distinguished,  as  if  the  distinction  were  self-evi- 
dent and  explained  itself,  from  "  the  impulse  in  man 
to  seek  his  highest  perfection."  Now,  morality  rep- 
resents for  everybody  a  thoroughly  definite  and  as- 
certained idea, — the  idea  of  human  conduct  regulated 
in  a  certain  manner.  Everybody,  again,  understands 
distinctly  enough  what  is  meant  by  man's  perfection, 
— his  reaching  the  best  which  his  powers  and  circum- 
stances allow  him  to  reach.  And  the  word  "  God  " 
is  used,  in  connection  with  both  these  words,  Morality 
and  Perfection,  as  if  it  stood  for  just  as  definite  and 
ascertained  an  idea  as  they  do;  an  idea  drawn  from 
experience,  just  as  the  ideas  are  which  they  stand 
for;  an  idea  about  which  every  one  was  agreed,  and 
from  which  we  might  proceed  to  argue  and  to  make- 
inferences,  with  the  certainty  that,  as  in  the  case  of 
morality  and  perfection,  the  basis  on  which  we  were 
going  every  one  knew  and  granted.  But,  in  truth, 
the  word  "  God  "  is  used  in  most  cases — not  by  the 
Bishops  of  Winchester  and  Gloucester,  but  by  man- 
kind in  general — as  by  no  means  a  term  of  science 
or  exact  knowledge,  but  a  term  of  poetry  and  elo- 


RELIGION  GIVEN.  41 

quence,  a  term  thrown  out,  so  to  speak,  at  a  not  fully 
grasped  object  of  the  speaker's  consciousness, — a  lit- 
erary term,  in  short ;  and  mankind  mean  different 
things  by  it  as  their  consciousness  differs. 

The  first  question,  then,  is,  how  people  are  using 
the  word,  whether  in  this  literary  way,  or  in  the  scien- 
tific way  of  the  Bishops  of  Winchester  and  Glouces- 
ter. The  second  question  is,  what,  supposing  them 
to  use  the  term  as  one  of  poetry  and  eloquence,  and 
to  import  into  it,  therefore,  a  great  deal  of  their  own 
individual  feelings  and  character,  is  yet  the  common 
substratum  of  idea  on  which,  in  using  it,  they  all 
rest.  For  this  will  then  be,  so  far  as  they  are  con- 
cerned, the  scientific  sense  of  the  word,  the  sense  in 
which  we  can  use  it  for  purposes  of  argument  and 
inference  without  ambiguity.  Is  this  substratum, 
at  any  rate,  coincident  with  the  scientific  idea  of  the 
Bishops  of  Winchester  and  Gloucester  ? — will  then 
be  the  question. 

Strictly  and  formally  the  word  "  God,"  we  now 
learn  from  the  philologists,  means,  like  its  kindred 
Aryan  words  Tlicos,  Deus,  and  Dcva,  simply  bril- 
liant. In  a  certain  narrow  way,  therefore,  this  is 
the  one  exact  and  scientific  sense  of  the  word.  It 
was  long  thought  to  mean  good,  and  so  Luther  took 
it  to  mean  the  best  that  man  knows  or  can  know;  and 
in  this  sense,  as  a  matter  of  fact  and  history,  mankind 
constantly  use  thr  word.  But  then  there  is  also  the 
scientific  sense  held  by  theologians,  deduced  from  the 
ideas  of  substance,  identity,  causation,  design,  and  so 
on;  but  taught,  they  say,  or  at  least  implied,  in  the 


42  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

Bible,  and  on  which  all  the  Bible  rests.  According  to 
this  scientific  sense  of  theology,  God  is  a  person,  the 
great  first  cause,  the  moral  and  intelligent  governor 
of  the  universe;  Jesus  Christ  consubstantial  with 
him;  and  the  Holy  Ghost  a  person  proceeding  from 
the  other  two.  This  is  the  sense  for  which,  or  for 
portions  of  which,  the  Bishops  of  Winchester  and 
Gloucester  are  so  zealous  to  do  something. 

Other  people,  however,  who  fail  to  perceive  the 
force  of  such  a  deduction  from  the  abstract  ideas 
above  mentioned,  who  indeed  think  it  quite  hollow, 
but  who  are  told  that  this  sense  is  in  the  Bible,  and 
that  they  must  receive  it  if  they  receive  the  Bible, 
conclude  that  in  that  case  they  had  better  receive 
neither  the  one  nor  the  other.  Something  of  this 
sort  it  was,  no  doubt,  which  made  Professor  Huxley 
tell  the  London  School  Board  lately,  that  "  if  these 
islands  had  no  religion  at  all,  it  would  not  enter  into 
his  mind  to  introduce  the  religious  idea  by  the  agency 
of  the  Bible."  Of  such  people  there  are  now  a  great 
many;  and  indeed  there  could  hardly,  for  those  who 
value  the  Bible,  be  a  greater  example  of  the  sacri- 
fices one  is  sometimes  called  upon  to  make  for  the 
truth,  than  to  find  that,  for  the  truth  as  held  by  the 
Bishops  of  Winchester  and  Gloucester,  if  it  is  the 
truth,  one  must  sacrifice  the  allegiance  of  so  many 
people  to  the  Bible. 

But  surely,  if  there  be  anything  with  which  meta- 
physics have  nothing  to  do,  and  where  a  plain  man, 
without  skill  to  walk  in  the  arduous  paths  of  abstruse 
may  .yet  find  himself  at  home,  it  is  reli- 


RELIGION  GIVEN.  43 

gion.  For  the  object  of  religion  is  conduct;  and 
conduct  is  really,  however  men  may  overlay  it  with 
philosophical  disquisitions,  the  simplest  thing  in  the 
world.  That  is  to  say,  it  is  the  simplest  thing  in  the 
world  as  far  as  understanding  is  concerned;  as  re- 
gards doing,  it  is  the  hardest  thing  in  the  world. 
Here  is  the  difficulty, — to  do  what  we  very  well  know 
ought  to  be  done ;  and  instead  of  facing  this,  men 
have  searched  out  another  with  which  they  occupy 
themselves  by  preference, — the  origin  of  what  is 
called  the  moral  sense,  the  genesis  and  physiology 
of  conscience,  and  so  on.  Xo  one  denies  that  here, 
too,  is  difficulty,  or  that  the  difficulty  is  a  proper  ob- 
ject for  the  human  faculties  to  be  exercised  upon ; 
but  the  difficulty  here  is  speculative.  It  is  not  the 
difficulty  of  religion,  which  is  a  practical  one;  and 
it  often  tends  to  divert  the  attention  from  this.  Yet 
surely  the  difficulty  of  religion  is  great  enough  by 
itself,  if  men  would  but  consider  it,  to  satisfy  the 
most  voracious  appetite  for  difficulties.  It  extends 
to  righteousness  in  the  whole  range  of  what  we  call 
conduct;  in  three  fourths,  therefore,  at  the  very  low- 
est computation,  of  human  life.  The  only  doubt  is 
whether  we  ought  not  to  make  the  range  of  conduct 
wider  still,  and  to  say  it  is  four  fifths  of  human  life, 
or  five  sixths.  But  it  is  better  to  be  under  the  mark 
than  over  it ;  so  let  us  be  content  with  reckoning  con- 
duct as  three  fourths  of  human  life. 

And  to  recognize  in  what  way  conduct  is  this,  let 
us  eschew  all  school-terms,  like  moral  sense,  and  vo- 
litional, and  altruistic,  which  philosophers  employ, 


44  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

and  let  us  help  ourselves  by  the  most  palpable  and 
plain  examples.  When  the  rich  man  in  the  Bible 
parable  says,  "  Soul,  thou  hast  much  goods  laid  up 
for  many  years;  take  thine  ease,  eat,  drink,  and  be 
merry!  "—those  goods  which  he  thus  assigns  as  the 
stuff  with  which  human  life  is  mainly  concerned  (and 
so  in  practice  it  really  is), — those  goods  and  our  deal- 
ings with  them, — our  taking  our  ease,  eating,  drink- 
ing, and  being  merry, — are  the  matter  of  conduct, 
the  range  where  it  is  exercised.  Eating,  drinking, 
ease,  pleasure,  money,  the  intercourse  of  the  sexes, 
the  giving  free  swing  to  one's  temper  and  instincts, — 
these  are  the  matters  with  which  conduct  is  concerned, 
and  with  which  all  mankind  know  and  feel  it  to  be 
concerned. 

Or  when  Protagoras  points  out  of  what  things  \ve 
are,  from  childhood  till  we  die,  being  taught  and  ad- 
monished, and  says  (but  it  is  lamentable  that  here 
we  have  not  at  hand  Mr.  Jowctt,  who  so  excellently 
introduces  the  enchanter  Plato  and  his  personages 
but  must  use  our  own  words) :  "  From  the  time  lie 
can  understand  what  is  said  to  him,  nurse  and 
mother,  and  teacher,  and  father,  too,  are  bending 
their  efforts  to  this  end, — to  make  the  child  good; 
teaching  and  showing  him  as  to  everything  he  has 
to  do  or  say,  how  this  is  right  and  that  not  right,  and 
this  is  honorable  and  that  vile,  and  this  is  holy  and 
that  unholy,  and  this  do  and  that  do  not ;  "  Prota- 
goras, also,  when  he  says  this,  bears  his  testimony  to 
the  scope  and  nature  of  conduct,  tells  us  what  e«>n- 
diift  is.  Or,  once  more,  when  Monsieur  Lit  ire  (  and 


RELIGION  GIVEN.  45 

"we  hope  to  make  our  peace  with  the  Comtists  by  quot- 
ing an  author  of  theirs  in  preference  to  those  au- 
thors whom  all  the  British  public  is  now  reading  and 
quoting),  when  Monsieur  Littre,  in  a  most  ingenious 
essay  on  the  origin  of  morals,  traces  up,  better,  per- 
haps, than  any  one  else,  all  our  impulses  into  two 
elementary  instincts,  the  instinct  of  self-preservation 
and  the  reproductive  instinct,  then  we  take  his  theory 
and  we  say,  that  all  the  impulses  which  can  be  con- 
ceived as  derivable  from  the  instinct  of  self-preser- 
vation in  us  and  the  reproductive  instinct,  these 
terms  being  applied  in  their  ordinary  sense,  are  the 
matter  of  conduct.  It  is  evident  this  includes,  to 
say  no  more,  every  impulse  relating  to  temper,  every 
impulse  relating  to  sensuality ;  and  we  all  know  how 
much  that  is. 

How  we  deal  with  these  impulses  is  the  matter 
of  conduct, — how  we  obey,  regulate,  or  restrain  them, 
— that  and  nothing  else.  ISTot  whether  M.  Littre's 
theory  is  true  or  false ;  for  whether  it  be  true  or  false, 
there  the  impulses  confessedly  now  are,  and  the  busi- 
ness of  conduct  is  to  deal  with  them.  But  it  is  evi- 
dent, if  conduct  deals  with  these,  both  how  important 
a  thing  conduct  is,  and  how  simple  a  thing.  Im- 
portant, because  it  covers  so  large  a  portion  of  human 
life,  and  the  portion  common  to  all  sorts  of  people; 
simple,  because,  though  there  needs  perpetual  admo- 
nition to  form  conduct,  the  admonition  is  needed,  not 
to  determine  what  we  ought  to  do,  but  to  make  us 
do  it. 

And    as    to    this    simplicity,    all    moralists    arc 


46  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

agreed.  "  Let  any  plain,  honest  man,"  says  Bishop 
Butler,  "  before  he  engages  in  any  course  of  action  " 
(he  means  action  of  the  very  kind  we  call  conduct}, 
"  ask  himself,  l  Is  this  I  am  going  about  right,  or  is 
it  wrong?  is  it  good,  or  is  it  evil  C  I  do  not  in  the 
least  doubt  but  that  this  question  would  be  answered 
agreeably  to  truth  and  virtue  by  almost  any  fair 
man  in  almost  any  circumstance."  And  Bishop  Wil- 
son says:  "Look  up  to  God"  (by  which  he  means 
just  this,  consult  your  conscience)  "  at  all  times,  and 
he  will,  as  in  a  glass,  discover  what  is  fit  to  be  done." 
And  the  Preacher's  well-known  sentence  is  exactly 
to  the  same  effect,  "  God  made  man  upright;  but  they 
have  sought  out  many  inventions," — or,  as  it  more 
correctly  is,  "  many  abstruse  reasonings."  Let  us 
hold  fast  to  this,  and  we  shall  find  we  have  a  stay  by 
the  help  of  which  even  poor  weak  men,  with  no  pre- 
tensions to  be  athletes,  may  stand  firmly. 

And  so,  when  we  are  asked,  What  is  the  object  of 
religion  ?  let  us  reply,  Conduct.  And  when  we  are 
asked  further,  What  is  conduct  ?  let  us  answer,  Three 
fourths  of  life. 


And  certainly  we  need  not  go  far  about  to  prove 
that  conduct,  or  "  righteousness,"  which  is  the  object 
of  religion,  is  in  a  special  manner  the  object  of 
religion.  The  word  "  righteousness  "  is  llir 
word  of  the  Old  Testament.  "  Keep  judgment  and 
do  righteousness!  Cease  to  do  evil,  learn  to  do 


RELIGION  GIVEN.  47 

well !  "  these  words  being  taken  in  their  plainest 
sense  of  conduct;  Offer  the  sacrifice,  not  of  victims 
and  ceremonies,  as  the  way  of  the  world  in  religion 
then  was,  but,  Offer  the  sacrifice  of  righteousness! 
The  great  concern  of  the  New  Testament  is  likewise 
righteousness,  but  righteousness  reached  through  par- 
ticular means,  Righteousness  by  the  power  of  Christ. 
A  sentence  which  sums  up  the  New  Testament,  and 
assigns  the  ground  whereon  the  Christian  Church 
stands,  is,  as  we  have  elsewhere  said,*  this :  "  Let 
every  one  that  nameth  the  name  of  Christ  depart 
from  iniquity !  "  If  we  are  to  take  a  sentence  which 
in  like  manner  sums  up  the  Old  Testament,  such  a 
sentence  is  this :  "  O  ye  that  love  the  Eternal,  see 
that  ye  hate  the  thing  which  is  evil !  to  him  that  or- 
dereth  his  conversion  right  shall  be  shown  the  salva- 
tion of  God." 

But  instantly  there  will  be  raised  the  objection 
that  this  is  morality,  not  religion;  morality,  ethics, 
conduct,  being  by  many  people,  and  above  all  by  the- 
ologians, carefully  contra-distinguished  from  religion, 
which  is  supposed  in  some  special  way  to  be  con- 
nected with  propositions  about  the  Godhead  of  the 
Eternal  Son,  like  those  for  which  the  Bishops  of 
Winchester  and  Gloucester  want  to  do  something,  or 
propositions  about  the  personality  of  God,  or  about 
election  or  justification.  Religion,  however,  means 
simply  either  a  binding  to  righteousness,  or  else  a 
serious  attending  to  righteousness  and  dwelling  upon 
it;  which  of  these  two  it  most  nearly  means,  depends 
*  St.  Paul  and  Protestantism,  p.  159. 


48  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

upon  the  view  we  take  of  the  word's  derivation ;  but 
it  means  one  of  them,  arid  they  are  really  much  the 
same.  And  the  antithesis  between  ethical  and  re- 
ligious is  thus  quite  a  false  one.  Ethical  means  prac- 
tical, it  relates  to  practice  or  conduct  passing  into 
habit  or  disposition.  Religious  also  means  prac- 
tical, but  practical  in  a  still  higher  Degree;  and  the 
right  antithesis  to  both  ethical  and  religious  is  the 
same  as  the  right  antithesis  to  practical',  namely, 
theoretical. 

Now,  the  propositions  of  the  Bishops  of  Winches- 
ter and  Gloucester  are  theoretical,  and  they  there- 
fore are  very  properly  opposed  to  propositions  which 
are  moral  or  ethical;  but  they  are  with  equal  pro- 
priety opposed  to  propositions  which  are  religious. 
They  differ  in  kind  from  what  is  religious  while 
what  is  ethical  agrees  in  kind  with  it.  'I Jut  is  there, 
therefore,  no  difference  between  what  is  ethical,  or 
morality,  and  religion  ?  There  is  a  difference,  a  dif- 
ference of  degrees.  Religion,  if  we  follow  the  in- 
tention of  human  thought  and  human  language  in  the 
use  of  the  word,  is  ethics  heightened,  enkindled,  lit 
up  by  feeling;  the  passage  from  morality  to  religion 
is  made,  when  to  morality  is  applied  emotion.  And 
the  true  meaning  of  religion  is  thus  not  simply  mor- 
ality, but  morality  touched  by  emotion.  And  this 
new  elevation  and  inspiration  of  morality  is  well 
marked  by  the  word  "  righteousness."  Conduct  is 
the  word  of  common  life,  morality  is  the  word  of 
philosophical  disquisition,  righteousness  is  the  word 
of  religion. 


RELIGION  GIVEN.  49 

Some  people,  indeed,  are  for  calling  all  high 
thought  and  feeling  by  the  name  of  religion ;  accord- 
ing to  that  saying  of  Goethe,  "  lie  who  has  art  and 
science  has  also  religion."  But  let  us  use  words  as 
mankind  generally  use  them.  We  may  call  art  and 
science  touched  by  emotion  religion,  if  we  will ;  as  we 
may  make  the  instinct  of  self-preservation,  into 
which  M.  Littre  traces  up  all  our  private  affections, 
include  the  perfecting  ourselves  by  the  study  of  what 
is  beautiful  in  art ;  and  the  reproductive  instinct,  into 
which  he  traces  up  all  our  social  affections,  include 
the  perfecting  mankind  by  political  science.  But 
men  have  not  yet  got  to  that  stage,  when  we  think 
much  of  either  their  private  or  their  social  affections 
at  all,  except  as  exercising  themselves  in  conduct; 
neither  do  we  yet  think  of  religion  as  otherwise  exer- 
cising itself.  When  mankind  speak  of  religion,  they 
have  before  their  mind  an  activity  engaged,  not  with 
the  whole  of  life,  but  with  that  three  fourths  of  life 
which  is  conduct.  This  ^s  wyide  enough  range  for  one 
word,  surely ;  but  at  any  rate,  let  us  at  present  limit 
ourselves  as  mankind  do. 

And  if  some  one  now  asks,  But  what  is  this  appli- 
cation of  emotion  to  morality,  and  by  what  marks 
may  we  know  it? — wr  ran  quite  easily  satisfy  him; 
not,  indeed,  by  any  disquisition  of  our  own,  but  in 
a  much  better  way,  by  examples.  "  By  the  dispen- 
sation of  Providence  to  mankind,"  says  Quintilian, 
"goodness  gives  men  most  pleasure.""  That  is 

*  Dedit  hoc  Providentia  hominibus  munus,  ut  honesta  ma- 
gis  juvarent. 

4 


50  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

morality.  "  The  path  of  the  just  is  as  the  shining 
light  which  shineth  more  and  more  unto  the  perfect 
day."  That  is  morality  touched  with  emotion  or  re- 
ligion. "  Hold  off  from  sensuality,"  says  Cicero ; 
"for,  if  you  have  given  yourself  up  to  it,  you  will 
find  yourself  unable  to  think  of  anything  else." 
That  is  morality.  "  Blessed  are  the  pure  in  heart," 
says  Jesus;  "for  they  shall  sec  God."  That  is  re- 
ligion. "  We  all  want  to  live  honestly,  but  cannot," 
says  the  Greek  maxim-maker.f  That  is  morality. 
"  O  wretched  man  that  I  am,  who  shall  deliver  me 
from  the  body  of  this  death !  "  says  St.  Paul.  That 
is  religion.  "  Would  thou  wert  of  as  good  conversa- 
tion in  deed  as  in  word !  "  is  morality.:}:  "  Not  every 
one  that  saith  unto  me,  Lord,  Lord,  shall  enter  into 
the  kingdom  of  Heaven,  but  he  that  doeth  the  will  of 
my  Father  which  is  in  Heaven !  "  is  religion.  "  Live 
as  you  were  meant  to  live!  "  is  morality.§  "  Lay 
hold  on  eternal  life !  "  is  religion. 

Or  we  may  take  the  contrast  within  the  bounds  of 
the  Bible  itself.  "  Love  not  sleep,  lest  thou  come 
to  poverty,"  is  morality.  "  My  meat  is  to  do  the  will 
of  him  that  sent  me,  and  to  finish  his  work,"  is  re- 
ligion. Or  we  may  even  observe  a  third  stage  h" 
tween  these  two  stages,  which  shows  to  us  the  transi- 
tion from  one  to  the  other.  "  If  thou  givest  fhy  son! 
the  desires  that  please  her,  she  will  make  thee  a  laugh- 

*  Sis  a  venereis  amoribus  ayersns  :  qniims  si  te  dfdidci  j>, 
non  aliucl  quidquam  possis  ro<;it.-HV  <|ii;un  illud  quod  diligis. 
•{•  Oftofiev  «a?x>f  Zfiv  Travrrr,  n'/'/'  <//'•  fwAfufta, 
j  KifT  f/afla  autypuv  ipya  -<>«:  ></;o/<-  'inn. 
$  Zyoov  Kara  <f>i>oiv. 


RELIGION  GIVEN.  51 

ing-stock  to  thine  enemies ;  "-^-that  is  morality. 
"He  that  resisteth  pleasure  crowneth  his  life;" 
that  is  morality  with  the  tone  heightened,  passing,  or 
trying  to  pass,  into  religion.  "  Flesh  and  blood  can- 
not inherit  the  kingdom  of  God ;  "  — there  the  passage 
is  made,  and  we  have  religion.  Our  religious  exam- 
ples are  here  all  taken  from  the  Bible,  and  from  the 
Bible  such  examples  can  best  be  taken,  but  we  might 
also  find  them  elsewhere.  "  O  that  my  lot  might 
lead  me  in  the  path  of  holy  innocence  of  thought  and 
di'cd,  the  path  which  august  laws  ordain,  laws  which 
in  the  highest  heaven  had  their  birth,  neither  did  the 
race  of  mortal  man  beget  them,  nor  shall  oblivion 
ever  put  them  to  sleep;  the  power  of  God  is  mighty 
in  them,  and  groweth  not  old !  "  That  is  from  Soph- 
ocles, but  it  is  as  much  religion  as  any  of  the  things 
which  we  have  quoted  as  religious.  Like  them,  it  is 
not  the  mere  enjoining  of  conduct,  but  it  is  this  en- 
joining touched,  strengthened,  and  almost  trans- 
formed by  the  addition  of  feeling. 

So  what  is  meant  by  the  application  of  emotion 
to  morality  has  now,  it  is  to  be  hoped,  been  made 
clear.  The  next  question  will,  I  suppose,  be,  But 
how  does  one  get  the  application  made  ?  Why,  how 
does  one  get  to  feel  much  about  any  matter  whatever  ? 
By  dwelling  upon  it,  by  staying  our  thoughts  upon  it, 
by  having  it  perpetually  in  our  mind.  The  very 
words  mind,  memory,  remain,  come,  probably,  all 
from  the  same  root,  from  the  notion  of  staying,  at- 
tending. Possibly  even  the  word  man  comes  from 
the  same ;  so  entirely  does  the  idea  of  humanity,  of 


52  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

intelligence,  of  looking  before  and  after,  of  raising 
one's  self  out  of  the  flux  of  things,  rest  upon  the  idea 
of  steadying  one's  self,  concentrating  one's  self,  mak- 
ing order  in  the  chaos  of  one's  impressions,  by  attend- 
ing to  one  impression  rather  than  the  other.  The 
rules  of  conduct,  of  morality,  were  themselves,  philos- 
ophers suppose,  reached  in  this  way ; — the  notion  of 
a  whole  self  as  opposed  to  a  partial  self,  a  best  self 
to  an  inferior,  to  a  momentary  self  a  permanent  self 
requiring  the  restraint  of  impulses  a  man  would 
naturally  have  indulged; — because,  by  attending  to 
his  life,  man  found  it  had  a  scope  beyond  the  wants 
of  the  present  moment.  Suppose  it  was  so;  then  the 
first  man  who,  as  "  a  being,"  comparatively,  "  of  a 
large  discourse,  looking  before  and  after,"  controlled 
the  native,  instantaneous,  mechanical  impulses  of  the 
instinct  of  self-preservation,  controlled  the  native,  in- 
stantaneous, mechanical  impulses  of  the  reproductive 
instinct,  had  morality  revealed  to  him. 

But  there  is  a  long  way  from  this  to  that  habitual 
dwelling  on  the  rules  thus  reached,  that  constant  turn- 
ing them  over  in  the  mind,  that  near  and  lively  ex- 
perimental sense  of  their  beneficence,  which  commu- 
nicates emotion  to  our  thought  of  them,  and  thus  in- 
calculably heightens  their  power.  And  the  more 
mankind  attended  to  the  claims  of  that  part  of  our 
nature  which  does  not  belong  to  conduct,  properly  so 
called,  or  to  morality  (and  we  have  seen  that,  after 
all,  about  one  fourth  of  our  nature  is  in  this  ease). 
the  more  they  would  have  distractions  to  take  oil'  their 
thoughts  from  those  moral  conclusions  which  all 


RELIGION  GIVEN.  53 

races  of  men,  one  may  say,  seem  to  have  reached,  and 
to  prevent  these  moral  conclusions  from  being  quick- 
ened by  emotion,  and  thus  becoming  religious. 


3. 


Only  with  one  people, — the  people  from  whom 
we  get  the  Bible, — these  distractions  did  not  happen. 

The  Old  Testament,  I  suppose  nobody  will  deny,  is 
filled  with  the  word  and  thought  of  righteousness. 
"  In  the  way  of  righteousness  is  life,  and  in  the  path- 
way thereof  is  no  death ;  "  "  Righteousness  tendeth 
to  life ; "  "  The  wicked  man  troubleth  his  own  flesh ;  " 
"The  way  of  the  transgressors  is  hard;" — nobody 
will  deny  that  those  texts  may  stand  for  the  funda- 
mental and  ever-recurring  idea  of  the  Old  Testament. 
No  people  ever  felt  so  strongly  as  the  people  of  the 
Old  Testament,  the  Hebrew  people,  that  conduct  is 
three  fourths  of  our  life  and  its  largest  concern ;  no 
people  ever  felt  so  strongly  that  succeeding,  going 
right,  hitting  the  mark  in  this  great  concern,  was  the 
way  of  peace,  the  highest  possible  satisfaction.  "  He 
that  keepeth  the  law,  happy  is  he ;  its  ways  are  ways 
of  pleasantness,  and  all  its  'paths  are  peace ;  if  thou 
hadst  walked  in  its  ways,  thou  shouldst  have  dwelt 
in  peace  forever !  "  Jeshurun,  one  of  the  ideal  names 
of  their  race,  is  the  upright;  Israel,  the  other  and 
greater,  is  the  wrestler  with  God,  he  who  has  known 
the  contention  and  strain  it  costs  to  stand  upright. 
Tli at  mysterious  personage,  by  whom  their  history 
first  touches  the  hill  of  Sion,  is  Melchisedek,  the 


54  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

tnjhteous  king;  their  holy  city,  Jerusalem,  is  the 
foundation,  or  vision,  or  inheritance,  of  that  which 
righteousness  achieves, — peace.  The  law  of  right- 
eousness was  such  an  object  of  attention  to  them,  that 
its  words  were  to  "  be  in  their  heart,  and  thou  shalt 
teach  the"m  diligently  unto  thy  children,  and  shalt 
talk  of  them  when  thou  sittest  in  thine  house,  and 
when  thou  walkest  by  the  way,  and  when  thou  liest 
down,  and  when  thou  risest  up."  To  keep  them  ever 
in  mind,  they  wore  them,  went  about  with  them, 
made  talismans  of  them ;  "  Bind  them  upon  thy  fin- 
gers, bind  them  about  thy  neck ;  write  them  upon  the 
table  of  thine  heart !  "  "  Take  fast  hold  of  her," 
they  said  of  the  doctrine  of  conduct,  or  righteous- 
ness, "  let  her  not  go !  keep  her,  for  she  is  thy  life  !  " 
People  who  thus  spoke  of  righteousness  could  not 
but  have  had  their  minds  long  and  deeply  engaged 
with  it ;  much  more  than  the  generality  of  mankind, 
who  have  nevertheless,  as  we  saw,  got  as  far  as  the 
notion  of  morals  or  conduct.  And,  if  they  were  so 
deeply  attentive  to  it,  one  thing  could  not  fail  to  strike 
them.  It  is  this:  the  very  great  part  in  righteous- 
ness which  belongs,  we  may  say,  to  not  ourselves.  In 
the  first  place,  we  did  not  make  ourselves,  or  our  na- 
ture, or  conduct  as  the  object  of  three  fourths  of  that 
nature;  we  did  not  provide  that  happiness  should 
follow  conduct,  as  it  undeniably  does;  that  the  sense 
of  succeeding,  going  right,  hitting  the  mark,  in  con- 
duct, should  give  satisfaction,  and  a  very  high  satis- 
faction, just  as  really  as  the  sense  of  doing  well  in 
his  work  gives  pleasure  to  a  poet  or  painter,  or  ac- 


RELIGION  GIVEN.  55 

oomplishing  what  he  tries  gives  pleasure  to  a  man 
who  is  learning  to  ride  or  shoot ;  or  as  satisfying  his 
hunger,  also,  gives  pleasure  to  a  man  who  is  hungry. 
All  this  we  did  not  make ;  and,  in  the  next  place, 
our  dealing  with  it  at  all,  when  it  is  made,  is  not 
wholly,  or  even  nearly  wholly,  in  our  power.  Our 
conduct  is  capable,  irrespective  of  what  we  can  our- 
selves certainly  answer  for,  of  almost  infinitely  dif- 
ferent degrees  of  force  and  energy  in  the  performance 
of  it,  of  lucidity  and  vividness  in  the  perception  of 
it,  of  fulness  in  the  satisfaction  from  it ;  and  these 
degrees  may  vary  from  day  to  day,  and  quite  incal- 
culably. Facilities  and  felicities,  whence  do  they 
come?  suggestions  and  stimulations,  where  do  they 
tend  ?  hardly  a  day  passes  but  we  have  some  experi- 
ence of  them.  And  so  Henry  More  was  led  to  say 
"  that  there  was  something  about  us  that  knew  bet- 
ter, often,  what  we  would  be  at  than  we  ourselves." 
For  instance,  every  one  can  understand  how  health 
and  freedom  from  pain  may  give  energy  for  conduct, 
and  how  a  neuralgia,  suppose,  may  diminish  it;  it 
does  not  depend  on  ourselves,  indeed,  whether  wo 
have  the  neuralgia  or  not,  but  we  can  understand  its 
impairing  our  spirit.  But  the  strange  thing  is,  that 
with  the  same  neuralgia  we  may  find  ourselves  one 
day  without  spirit  and  energy  for  conduct,  and  an- 
other day  with  them.  So  that  we  may  most  truly 
say,  "  Left  to  ourselves,  we  sink  and  perish ;  visited, 
we  lift  up  our  heads  and  live."  And  we  may  well 

*  "Relicti  mergimur  et  perimus,  visitati  vero  erigimur  et 
viviinus. 


5G  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

give  ourselves,  in  grateful  and  devout  self-surrender, 
to  that  by  which  we  are  thus  visited.  So  much  is 
there  incalculable,  so  much  that  belongs  to  not  our- 
selves, in  conduct;  and  the  more  we  attend  to  con- 
duct, and  the  more  we  value  it,  the  more  we  shall  feel 
this. 

The  not  ourselves,  which  is  in  us  and  in  the  world 
round  us,  has  almost  everywhere,  as  far  as  we  can  see, 
struck  the  minds  of  men,  as  they  awoke  to  conscious- 
ness, and  has  inspired  them  with  awe.  Every  one 
knows  how  the  mighty  natural  objects  which  most 
took  their  regards  became  the  objects  to  which  this 
awe  addressed  itself.  Our  very  word  God  is  a  rem- 
iniscence of  these  times,  when  men  invoked  "  The 
Brilliant  on  high,"  sublime  hoc  candens  quod  invo- 
cent  omnes  Jovem,  as  the  power  representing  to  thorn 
that  which  transcended  the  limits  of  their  narrow 
selves,  and  that  by  which  they  lived  and  moved  and 
had  their  being.  Every  one  knows  of  what  differ- 
ences of  operation  men's  dealing  with  this  power  has 
in  different  places  and  times  shown  itself  capable; 
how  here  they  have  been  moved  by  the  not  ourselves 
to  a  cruel  terror,  there  to  a  timid  religiosity,  there 
again  to  a  play  of  imagination ;  almost  always,  how- 
ever, connecting  with  it,  by  some  string  or  other, 
conduct. 

But  we  are  not  writing  a  history  of  religion ;  wo 
are  only  tracing  its  effect  on  the  hmiiujiii'o  of  the  men 
from  whom  we  get  the  Bible.  At  the  time  tlu-y  pro- 
duced those  documents  which  gave  to  the  Old  Testa- 
ment its  power  and  true  character,  the  not  ourselves 


RELIGION  GIVEN.  57 

which  weighed  upon  the  mind  of  Israel,  and  engaged 
its  awe,  was  the  not  ourselves  by  which  we  get  the 
sense  for  righteousness  and  whence  we  find  the  help 
lo  do  right.  This  conception  was  indubitably  what 
lay  at  the  bottom  of  that  remarkable  change  which, 
under  Moses,  at  a  certain  stage  of  their  religious  his- 
tory, befell  their  mode  of  naming  God;  this  was 
what  they  intended  in  that  name,  which  we  wrongly 
convey  either  without  translation,  by  Jehovah,  which 
gives  us  the  notion  of  a  mere  mythological  deity,  or 
by  a  wrong  translation,  Lord,  which  gives  us  the  no- 
tion of  a  magnified  and  non-natural  man.  The  name 
they  used  was :  The  Eternal. 

Philosophers  dispute  whether  moral  ideas,  as  they 
call  them,  the  simplest  ideas  of  conduct  and  right- 
eousness which  now  seem  instinctive,  did  not  all 
grow,  were  not  once  inchoate,  embryo,  dubious,  un- 
formed ;  that  may  have  been  so ;  the  question  is  an 
interesting  one  for  science.  But  the  interesting  ques- 
tion for  conduct  is  whether  those  ideas  are  unformed 
or  formed  now ;  they  are  formed  now,  and  they  were 
formed  when  the  Hebrews  named  the  power,  out  of 
themselves,  which  pressed  upon  their  spirit:  The 
Eternal.  Probably  the  life  of  Abraham,  the  friend 
of  God,  however  imperfectly  the  Bible  traditions  by 
themselves  convey  it  to  us,  was  a  decisive  step  for- 
wards in  the  development  of  these  ideas  of  righteous- 
ness. Probably  this  was  the  moment  when  such 
ideas  became  fixed  and  solid  for  the  Hebrew  people, 
and  marked  it  permanently  off  from  all  others  who 
had  not  made  the  same  step.  But  long  before  the 


58  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

first  beginnings  of  recorded  history,  long  before  the 
oldest  word  of  Bible  literature,  these  ideas  must  have 
Urn  at  work;  we  know  it  by  the  result,  although  they 
may  have  for  a  long  while  been  but  rudimentary. 
In  Israel's  earliest  history  and  earliest  literature,  un- 
der the  name  of  Eloah,  Elohim,  The  Mighty,  there 
may  have  lain  and  matured,  there  did  lie  and  mature, 
ideas  of  God  more  as  a  moral  power,  more  as  a  power 
connected  above  everything  with  conduct  and  right- 
eousness, than  were  entertained  by  other  races;  not 
only  can  we  judge  by  the  result  that  this  must  have 
been  so,  but  we  can  see  that  it  was  so.  Still  their 
name,  The  Mighty,  does  not  in  itself  involve  any 
true  and  deep  religious  ideas,  any  more  than  our 
name,  The  Brilliant.  With  The  Eternal  it  is  other- 
wise. For  what  did  they  mean  by  the  Eternal ;  the 
Eternal  what?  The  Eternal  cause?  Alas,  these 
poor  people  were  not  Archbishops  of  York.  They 
meant  the  Eternal  righteous,  who  lovetli  rit/hf eons- 
ness.  They  had  dwelt  upon  the  thought  of  conduct 
and  right  and  wrong,  till  the  not  ourselves  which  is 
in  us  and  around  us  became  to  them  adorable  emi- 
nently and  altogether  as  a  power  which  makes  for 
righteousness;  which  makes  for  it  unchangeably  and 
eternally,  and  is  therefore  called  The  Eternal. 

There  is  not  a  particle  of  metaphysics  in  their  use 
of  this  name,  any  more  than  in  their  conception  of 
the  not  ourselves  to  which  they  attached  it.  Both 
came  to  them,  not  from  abstruse  reasoning,  but  from 
experience,  and  from  experience  in  the  plain  region 
of  conduct.  Theologians  with  metaphysical  heads 


RELIGION  GIVEN.  59 

render  Israel's  Eternal  by  the  self -existent,  and 
Israel's  not  ourselves  by  the  absolute,  and  attribute 
to  Israel  their  own  subtleties.  According  to  them, 
Israel  had  his  head  full  of  the  necessity  of  a  first 
cause,  and  therefore  said,  The  Eternal;  as,  again, 
they  imagine  him  looking  out  into  the  world,  noting 
everywhere  the  marks  of  design  and  adaptation  to 
his  wants,  and  reasoning  out  and  inferring  thence  the 
fatherhood  of  God.  All  these  fancies  come  from  an 
excessive  turn  for  reasoning,  and  a  neglect  of  observ- 
ing men's  actual  course  of  thinking  and  way  of  using 
words.  Israel,  at  this  stage  when  The  Eternal  was 
revealed  to  him,  inferred  nothing,  reasoned  out  noth- 
ing. He  felt  and  experienced.  When  he  begins  to 
speculate  in  the  schools  of  Rabbinism,  he  quickly 
shows  how  much  less  native  talent  than  the  Bishops 
of  Winchester  and  Gloucester  he  has  for  this  perilous 
business. 

Happily,  when  The  Eternal  was  revealed  to  him, 
he  had  not  yet  begun  to  speculate.  He  personified, 
indeed,  his  Eternal,  for  he  was  strongly  moved,  and 
an  orator  and  poet.  "  Man  never  knows  how  an- 
thropomorphic he  is,"  says  Goethe,  and  so  man  tends 
always  to  represent  everything  under  his  own  figure. 
In  poetry  and  eloquence,  man  may  and  must  follow 
this  tendency,  but  in  science  it  often  leads  him  astray. 
Israel,  however,  did  not  scientifically  predicate  per- 
sonality of  God ;  he  would  not  even  have  had  a  notion 
what  was  meant  by  it.  He  called  him  the  maker 
of  all  things,  who  gives  drink  to  all  out  of  his  pleas- 
ures as  out  of  a  river ;  but  he  was  led  to  this  by  no 


60  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

theory  of  a  first  cause.  The  grandeur  of  the  spec- 
tacle given  by  the  world,  the  grandeur  of  the  sense 
of  its  all  being  not  ourselves,  being  above  and  be- 
yond ourselves  and  immeasurably  dwarfing  us,  a  man 
of  imagination  instinctively  personifies  as  a  single 
mighty  living  and  productive  power;  as  Goethe  tells 
us  that  the  words  which  rose  naturally  to  his  lips, 
when  he  stood  on  the  top  of  the  Brocken,  were: 
"  Lord,  what  is  man,  that  thou  mindest  him,  or  the 
son  of  man,  that  thou  makest  account  of  him  ?  "  But 
Israel's  confessing  and  extolling  of  this  power  came 
not  even  from  his  imaginative  feeling,  but  came  first 
from  his  gratitude  for  righteousness.  To  one  who 
knows  what  conduct  is,  it  is  a  joy  to  be  alive;  the 
not  ourselves,  which  by  revealing  to  us  righteousness 
makes  our  happiness,  adds  to  the  boon  this  glorious 
world  to  be  righteous  in. 

That  is  the  notion  at  the  bottom  of  the  Hebrew's 
praise  of  a  Creator;  and  if  we  attend,  we  can  see 
this  quite  clearly.  Wisdom  and  understanding  mean, 
for  Israel,  "  the  fear  of  the  Eternal ;  "  and  the  fear  of 
the  Eternal  means  for  him  "  to  depart  from  evil," 
righteousness.  Righteousness,  order,  conduct,  is  for 
him  the  essence  of  The  Eternal,  and  the  source  of  nil 
man's  happiness;  and  it  is  only  as  a  further  ;nid 
natural  working  of  this  essence  that  he  conceives 
creation.  "  The  fear  of  the  Eternal,  that  is  wisdom  ; 
and  to  depart  from  evil,  that  is  understanding] 
Happy  is  the  man  that  findeth  wisdom,  and  the  111:111 
that  getteth  understanding!  She  is  a  tree  of  life  to 
them  that  lay  hold  upon  her,  and  h;ippy  is  every  one 


RELIGION  GIVEN.  61 

that  retaineth  her.  The  Eternal  by  wisdom  hath 
founded  the  earth,  by  understanding  hath  he  estab- 
lished the  heavens !  "  — and  so  the  Bible  writer  passes 
into  the  account  of  creation.  It  all  comes  to  him 
from  the  idea  of  righteousness. 

And  it  is  the  same  with  all  the  language  our  He- 
brew speaker  uses.  God  is  a  father,  because  the 
power  in  and  around  us  which  makes  for  righteous- 
ness is  indeed  best  described  by  the  name  of  this  au- 
thoritative but  yet  tender  and  protecting  relation. 
So,  too,  with  the  intense  fear  and  abhorrence  of  idol- 
atry. Conduct,  righteousness,  is,  above  all,  an  inward 
motion  and  rule;  no  sensible  forms  can  represent  it, 
or  help  us  to  it ;  such  attempts  at  representation  can 
only  distract  us  from  it.  So,  too,  with  the  sense  of  the 
oneness  of  God.  "  Hear,  O  Israel !  The  Lord  our 
God  is  one  Lord."  People  think  that  in  this  unity  of 
God — this  monotheistic  idea,  as  they  call  it — they 
have  certainly  got  metaphysics  at  last.  It  is  noth- 
ing of  the  kind.  The  monotheistic  idea  of  Israel  is 
simply  seriousness.  There  are,  indeed,  many  aspects 
of  the  not  ourselves;  but  Israel  regarded  one  aspect 
of  it  only,  that  by  which  it  makes  for  righteousness. 
He  had  the  advantage,  to  be  sure,  that  with  this  as- 
pect three  fourths  of  human  life  is  concerned.  But 
there  are  other  aspects  which  may  be  taken.  "  Frail 
and  striving  mortality,"  says  the  elder  Pliny,  in  a 
noble  passage,  "  mindful  of  its  own  weakness,  has 
distinguished  these  aspects  severally,  so  as  for  each 
man  to  be  able  to  attach  himself  to  the  divine  by  this 
or  that  part,  according  as  he  has  most  need."  That 


62  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

is  an  apology  for  polytheism,  as  answering  to  man's 
many-sidedness.  But  Israel  felt  that  being  thus 
many-sided  degenerated  into  an  imaginative  play, 
and  bewildered  what  Israel  recognized  as  our  sole 
religious  consciousness, — the  consciousness  of  right. 
"  Let  thine  eyelids  look  right  on,  and  let  thine  eye- 
lids look  straight  before  thee;  turn  not  to  the  right 
hand  nor  to  the  left ;  remove  thy  foot  from  evil !  " 

Does 'not  Ovid  say,*  in  excuse  for  the  immorality 
of  his  verses,  that  the  sight  and  mention  of  the  gods 
themselves — the  rulers  of  human  life — often  raised 
immoral  thoughts  ?  and  so  the  sight  and  mention  of 
all  aspects  of  the  not  ourselves  must.  Yet  how  tempt- 
ing are  many  of  these  aspects !  Even  at  this  time  of 
day,  the  grave  authorities  of  the  University  of  Cam- 
bridge are  so  struck  by  one  of  them,  that  of  pleasure, 
life,  and  fecundity, — of  the  hominum  divomque 
voluptas,  alma  Venus, — that  they  set  it  publicly  up 
as  an  object  of  their  scholars  to  fix  their  minds  upon, 
and  to  compose  verses  in  honor  of.  That  is  all  very 
well  at  present;  but  with  this  natural  bent  in  the  au- 
thorities of  the  University  of  Cambridge,  and  in  the 
Indo-European  race  to  which  they  belong,  where 
would  they  be  now  if  it  had  not  been  for  Israel,  and 
the  stern  check  which  Israel  put  upon  the  glorifica- 
tion and  divinization  of  this  natural  bent  of  man- 
kind, this  attractive  aspect  of  the  not  ourselr*  >  / 
Perhaps  going  in  procession,  Vice-Chancellor,  bedels, 

*  Tristia,  II.  287. 

"  Quis  locus  est  templis  augustinr  ?  haec  quoque  vitet 

In  riilpum  si  qua  est  ingeniosa  suam." 
See  the  whole  passage. 


RELIGION  GIVEN.  63 

masters,  scholars,  and  all,  in  spite  of  their  Professor 
of  Moral  Philosophy,  to  the  temple  of  Aphrodite! 
Nay,  and  very  likely  Mr.  Birks  himself,  his  brows 
crowned  with  myrtle  and  scarcely  a  shade  of  melan- 
choly on  his  countenance,  would  have  been  going 
along  with  them !  It  is  Israel  and  his  seriousness 
that  have  saved  the  authorities  of  the  University  of 
Cambridge  from  carrying  their  divinization  of  pleas- 
ure to  these  lengths,  or  from  making  more  of  it,  in- 
deed, than  a  mere  passing  intellectual  play ;  and  even 
this  play  Israel  would  have  beheld  with  displeasure, 
saying,  "  O  turn  away  mine  eyes  lest  they  behold 
vanity,  but  quicken  Thou  me  in  thy  law !  "  So 
earnestly  and  exclusively  were  Israel's  regards  bent 
on  one  aspect  of  the  not  ourselves;  its  aspect  as  a 
power  making  for  conduct,  righteousness.  Israel's 
Eternal  was  the  Eternal  which  says,  "  To  depart 
from  evil,  that  is  understanding!  "  "  Be  ye  holy,  for 
I  am  holy  !  "  Now,  as  righteousness  is  but  a  height- 
ened conduct,  so  holiness  is  but  a  heightened  right- 
eousness ;  a  more  finished,  entire,  and  awe-filled  right- 
eousness. It  was  such  a  righteousness  which  was 
Israel's  ideal ;  and  therefore  it  was  that  Israel  said, 
not  indeed  what  our  Bibles  make  him  say,  but  this: 
"Hear,  O  Israel!  The  Eternal  is  our  God,  The 
Eternal  alone." 

And  in  spite  of  his  turn  for  personification,  his 
want  of  a  clear  boundary  line  between  poetry  and 
science,  his  inaptitude  to  express  even  abstract  no- 
tions by  other  than  highly  concrete  terms, — in  spite 
of  these  scientific  disadvantages,  or  rather,  perhaps, 


64  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

because  of  them,  because  he  had  no  talent  for  abstruse 
reasoning  to  lead  him  astray, — the  spirit  and  tongue 
of  Israel  kept  a  propriety,  a  reserve,  a  sense  of  the  in- 
adequacy of  language  in  conveying  man's  ideas  of 
God,  which  contrast  strongly  with  the  license  of  af- 
firmation in  our  Western  theology.  "  The  high  and 
holy  One  that  inhabiteth  eternity,  whose  name  is 
holy,"  is  far  more  proper  and  felicitous  language, 
than,  "  the  moral  and  intelligent  Governor  of  the 
universe,"  just  because  it  far  less  attempts  to  be 
precise,  but  keeps  to  the  language  of  poetry  and  does 
not  essay  the  language  of  science.  As  he  had  devel- 
oped his  idea  of  God  from  personal  experience,  Israel 
knew  what  we,  who  have  developed  our  idea  from  his 
words  about  it,  so  often  are  ignorant  of:  that  his 
words  were  but  thrown  out  at  a  vast  object  of  con- 
sciousness, which  he  could  not  fully  grasp,  and  which 
he  apprehended  clearly  by  one  point  alone, — that  it 
made  for  the  great  concern  of  life,  conduct.  How  lit- 
tle we  know  of  it  besides,  how  impenetrable  is  the 
course  of  its  ways  with  us,  how  we  are  baffled  in  our 
attempts  to  name  and  describe  it,  how,  when  we  per- 
sonify it  and  call  it  "  the  moral  and  intelligent  Gov- 
ernor of  the  universe,"  we  presently  find  it  not  to 
be  a  person  as  man  conceives  of  person,  nor  moral  as 
man  conceives  of  moral,  nor  intelligent  as  man  con- 
ceives of  intelligent,  nor  a  governor  as  man  conceives 
of  governors, — all  this,  which  scientific  theology  loses 
sight  of,  Israel,  who  had  but  poetry  and  eloquence, 
and  no  system,  and  who  did  not  mind  contradicting 
himself,  knew.  "  Is  it  any  pleasure  to  the  Almighty. 


RELIGION  GIVEN.  65 

that  thou  art  righteous  ?  "  What  a  blow  to  our  ideal 
of  that  magnified  and  non-natural  man,  "  the  moral 
and  intelligent  Governor !  "  Say  what  we  can  about 
God,  say  our  best,  we  have  yet,  Israel  knew,  to  add 
instantly :  "  Lo,  these  are  parts  of  his  ways ;  but  how 
little  a  portion  is  heard  of  him!"  Yes,  indeed, 
Israel  remembered  that,  far  better  than  our  bishops 
do.  "  Canst  thou  by  searching  find  out  God ;  canst 
thou  find  out  the  perfection  of  the  Almighty  ?  It  is 
more  high  than  heaven,  what  canst  thou  do?  deeper 
than  hell,  what  canst  thou  know?  " 

Will  it  be  said,  experience  might  also  have  shown 
to  Israel  a  not  ourselves  which  did  not  make  for  his 
happiness,  but  rather  made  against  it,  baffled  his 
claims  to  it  ?  But  no  man,  as  we  have  elsewhere  re- 
marked, who  simply  follows  his  own  consciousness, 
is  aware  of  any  claims,  any  rights,  whatever;*  what 
he  gets  of  good  makes  him  thankful,  what  he  gets  of 
ill  seems  to  him  natural.  It  is  true,  the  not  ourselves 
of  which  he  is  thankfully  conscious  he  inevitably 
speaks  of  and  speaks  to  as  a  man ;  for  "  man  never 
knows  how  anthropomorphic  he  is."  As  time  pro- 
ceeds, imagination  and  reasoning  keep  working  upon 
this  substructure,  and  build  from  it  a  magnified  and 
non-natural  man.  Attention  is  then  drawn,  after- 
wards, to  causes  outside  ourselves  which  seem  to  make 
for  sin  and  suffering;  and  then  either  these  causes 
have  to  be  reconciled  by  some  highly  ingenious 
scheme  with  the  magnified  and  non-natural  man's 
power,  or  a  second  magnified  and  non-natural  man 
*  Culture  and  Anarchy,  p.  214. 

5 


60  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

has  to  be  supposed,  who  pulls  the  contrary  way  to  the 
first.  So  arise  Satan  and  his  angels.  But  all  this 
is  secondary,  and  comes  much  later;  Israel,  the 
founder  of  our  religion,  did  not  begin  with  this.  He 
began  with  experience.  He  knew  from  thankful  ex- 
perience the  not  ourselves  which  makes  for  righteous- 
ness, and  knew  how  little  we  know  about  God  be- 


The  language  of  the  Bible,  then,  is  literary,  not 
scientific  language;  language  thrown  out  at  an  object 
of  consciousness  not  fully  grasped,  which  inspired 
emotion.  Evidently,  if  the  object  be  one  not  fully 
to  be  grasped,  and  one  to  inspire  emotion,  the  lan- 
guage of  figure  and  feeling  will  satisfy  us  better 
about  it,  will  cover  more  of  what  we  seek  to  express 
than  the  language  of  literal  fact  and  science;  the  lan- 
guage of  science  about  it  will  be  below  what  we  feel 
to  be  the  truth. 

The  question  however  has  arisen  and  confronts  us ; 
what  was  the  scientific  basis  of  fact  for  this  coiwions- 
ness.  When  we  have  once  satisfied  ourselves  both  as 
to  the  tentative,  poetic  way  in  which  the  Bible  per- 
sonages used  language,  and  also  as  to  their  having  no 
pretensions  to  metaphysics  at  all,  let  us,  therefore, 
when  there  is  this  question  raised  as  to  the  scientific 
account  of  what  they  had  before  their  minds,  be  con- 
tent with  a  very  unpretending  answer.  And  in  this 
way  such  a  phrase  as  that  which  we  have  formerly 


HELIGION  GIVEN.  67 

used  concerning  God,  and  have  been  much  blamed  for 
using, — the  phrase,  namely,  that,  "  for  science,  God 
is  simply  the  stream  of  tendency  by  which  all  things 
fulfil  the  law  of  their  being," — may  be  allowed,  and 
even  prove  useful.  Certainly  it  is  inadequate;  cer- 
tainly it  is  a  less  proper  phrase  than,  for  instance: 
"  Clouds  and  darkness  are  round  about  him,  right- 
eousness and  judgment  are  the  habitation  of  his 
seat."  *  But  then  it  is,  in  however  humble  a  de- 
gree and  with  however  narrow  a  reach,  a  scientific 
definition,  which  the  other  is  not.  The  phrase,  "  A 
Personal  First  Cause,  the  moral  and  intelligent  Gov- 
ernor of  the  universe,"  has  also,  when  applied  to  God, 
the  character,  no  doubt,  of  a  scientific  definition ;  but 
then  it  goes  far  beyond  what  is  admittedly  certain 
and  verifiable,  which  is  what  we  mean  by  scientific. 
It  attempts  far  too  much ;  if  we  want  here,  as  we  do 
want,  to  have  what  is  admittedly  certain  and  verifi- 
able, we  must  content  ourselves  with  very  little.  No 
one  will  say,  that  it  is  admittedly  certain  and  veri- 
fiable, that  there  is  a  personal  first  cause,  the  moral 
and  intelligent  governor  of  the  universe,  whom  we 
may  call  God  if  we  will.  But  that  all  things  seem  to 
us  to  have  what  we  call  a  law  of  their  being,  and  to 
tend  to  fulfil  it,  is  certain  and  admitted;  though 

*  It  has  been  urged  that  if  this  personifying  mode  of  expres- 
sion is  more  proper  and  adequate,  it  must  also  be  more  scien- 
tifically exact.  But  surely  it  must  on  reflection  appear  that 
this  is  by  no  means  so.  Wordsworth  calls  the  earth  "  the 
mighty  mother  of  mankind,"  and  the  geographers  call  her 
"an  oblate  spheroid1';  Wordsworth's  expression  is  more 
proper  and  adequate  to  convey  what  men  feel  about  the  earth, 
but  it  is  not  therefore  the  more  scientifically  exact. 


68  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

whether  we  will  call  this  God  or  not  is  a  matter  of 
choice.  Suppose,  however,  we  call  it  God,  we  then 
give  the  name  of  God  to  a  certain  and  admitted  real- 
ity; this,  at  least,  is  an  advantage. 

And  the  motion  does,  in  fact,  enter  into  the  term 
God,  in  men's  common  use  of  it.  To  please  God,  to 
serve  God,  to  obey  God's  will,  does  mean  to  follow  a 
law  of  things  which  is  found  in  conscience,  and  which 
is  an  indication,  irrespective  of  our  arbitrary  wish 
and  fancy,  of  what  we  ought  to  do.  There  is,  then, 
a  real  power  which  makes  for  righteousness;  and  it 
is  the  greatest  of  realities  for  us.  When  Paul  says, 
our  business  is  "  to  serve  the  spirit  of  God,"  "  to  serve 
the  living  and  true  God ;  "  and  when  Epictetus  says, 
"  What  do  I  want  ?  to  acquaint  myself  with  the  true 
order  of  things,  and  comply  with  it," — they  both 
mean,  so  far,  the  same,  in  that  they  both  mean  we 
should  obey  a  tendency,  which  is  not  ourselves,  but 
which  appears  in  our  consciousness,  by  which  ihing.- 
fulfil  the  real  law  of  their  being. 

It  is  true,  the  not  ourselves,  by  which  things  fulfil 
the  real  law  of  their  being,  extends  a  great  deal  be- 
yond that  sphere  where  alone  we  usually  think  of  it. 
That  is,  a  man  may  disserve  God,  disobey  indications 
not  of  our  own  making  but  wliidi  appear,  if  we  at- 
tend, in  our  consciousness, — he  may  dist they,  I  say, 
such  indications  of  the  real  law  of  our  being  in  other 
spheres  besides  the  sphere  of  conduct.  Ho  does  dis- 
obey them,  when  he  sings  a  hymn  like,  "  \\  \  Jesus 
to  know,  and  feel  his  blood  flow,"  or,  indeed,  like  nine 
tenths  of  our  hymns,  or  when  he  frames  and  main- 


RELIGION  GIVEN.  69 

tains  a  blundering  and  miserable  constitution  of  so- 
ciety, as  well  as  when  he  commits  some  plain  breach 
of  the  moral  law.  That  is,  he  may  disobey  them  in 
art  and  science  as  well  as  in  conduct.  But  he  at- 
tends, and  the  generality  of  men  attend,  only  to  the 
indications  of  a  true  law  of  our  being  as  to  conduct; 
and  hardly  at  all  to  indications,  though  they  as  really 
exist,  of  a  true  law  of  our  being  on  its  aesthetic  and 
intelligential  side.  The  reason  is,  that  the  moral 
side,  though  not  more  real,  is  so  much  larger ;  taking 
in,  as  we  have  said,  at  least  three  fourths  of  life. 
Now,  the  indications  on  this  moral  side  of  that  ten- 
dency, not  of  our  making,  by  which  things  fulfil  the 
law  of  their  being,  we  do  very  much  mean  to  denote 
and  to  sum  up  when  we  speak  of  the  will  of  God, 
pleasing  God,  serving  God.  Let  us  keep  firm  foot- 
ing on  this  basis  of  plain  fact,  narrow  though  it  may 
be. 

To  feel  that  one  is  fulfilling  in  any  way  the  law 
of  one's  being,  that  one  is  succeeding  and  hitting  the 
mark,  brings  us,  we  know,  happiness ;  to  feel  this  in 
regard  to  so  great  a  thing  as  conduct  brings,  of 
course,  happiness  proportionate  to  the  thing's  great- 
ness. We  have  already  had  Quintilian's  witness, 
how  right  conduct  gives  joy.  Who  could  value  knowl- 
edge more  than  Goethe  ?  but  he  marks  it  as  being 
without  question  a  lesser  source  of  joy  than  conduct ; 
conduct  he  ranks  with  health  as  beyond  all  compare 
primary.  "  Nothing,  after  health  and  virtue,"  he 
says,  "  can  give  so  much  satisfaction  as  learning  and 
knowing."  Nay,  and  Bishop  Butler,  at  the  view  of 


70  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

die  happiness  from  conduct,  breaks  free  from  all  that 
hesitancy  and  depression  which  so  commonly  hangs 
on  his  masterly  thinking.  "  Self-love,  methinks. 
should  he  alarmed!  May  she  not  pass  over  greater 
pleasures  than  those  >he  is  so  wholly  taken  up  with  '?  " 
And  Bishop  Wilson,  always  hitting  the  right  nail  on 
the  head  in  matters  of  this  sort,  remarks  that,  "  if  it 
were  not  for  the  practical  difficulties  attending  it, 
virtue  would  hardly  he  distinguishable  from  a  kind 
of  sensuality."  The  practical  difficulties  are  indeed 
exceeding  great ;  plain  as  is  the  course,  and  high  the 
prize,  we  all  find  ourselves  daily  led  to  say,  with  the 
Imitation,  "  Would  that  for  one  single  day  we  had 
lived  in  this  world  as  we  ought !  "  Yet  the  course 
is  so  evidently  plain,  and  the  prize  so  high,  that  the 
same  Imitation  cries  out  presently,  "  If  a  man  would 
but  take  notice,  what  peace  he  brings  himself,  and 
what  joy  to  others,  merely  by  managing  himself 
right!  "  And  for  such  happiness,  since  certainly  we 
ourselves  did  not  make  it,  we  instinctively  feel  grate- 
ful; according  to  that  remark  of  one  of  the  whole- 
somest  and  truest  of  moralists,  Barrow :  "  lie  is  not 
a  man  who  doth  not  delight  to  make  some  returns 
thither  whence  he  hath  found  great  kindness."  And 
this  sense  of  gratitude,  again,  is  itself  an  addition  to 
our  happiness !  So  strong,  altogether,  is  the  witness 
and  sanction  happiness  gives  to  going  right  in  con- 
duct, to  fulfilling,  so  far  as  conduct  is  concerned,  the 
law  indicated  to  us  of  our  being;  and  there  can  be 
no  sanction  to  compare,  for  force,  with  the  strong 
sanction  of  happiness,  if  it  is  true  what  Bishop  But- 


RELIGION  GIVEN.  ft 

ler,  who  is  here  but  the  mouthpiece  of  humanity  it- 
self, says  so  irresistibly :  "  It  is  manifest  that  noth- 
ing can  be  of  consequence  to  mankind,  or  any  crea- 
ture, but  happiness." 

And  now  let  us  see  how  exactly  Israel's  percep- 
tions about  God  follow  and  confirm  this  simple  line, 
which  we  have  here  reached  quite  independently. 
First :  "  It  is  joy  to  the  just  to  do  judgment."  Then : 
"  It  becometh  well  the  just  to  be  thankful."  Finally  : 
"  A  pleasant  thing  it  is  to  be  thankful."  What  can 
be  simpler  than  this,  and  at  the  same  time  more  solid  ? 
But  again :  "  There  is  nothing  sweeter  than  to  take 
heed  unto  the  commandments  of  the  Eternal."  And 
then  :  "  Thou  art  my  portion,  0  Eternal!  at  midnight 
will  I  rise  to  give  thanks  unto  thee  because  of  thy 
righteous  judgments."  And  lastly:  "O  praise  the 
Eternal,  for  it  is  a  good  thing  to  sing  praises  unto 
our  God!"  Why,  these  are  the  very  same  proposi- 
tions as  the  others,  only  with  a  power  and  depth  of 
emotion  added!  Emotion  has  been  applied  to 
morality. 

God  is  here  really,  at  bottom,  a  deeply  moved  way 
of  saying  conduct  or  righteousness.  "  Trust  in 
God  "  is  trust  in  the  law  of  conduct ;  "  delight  in 
the  Eternal  "  is,  in  a  deeply  moved  way  of  expression, 
the  happiness  we  all  feel  to  spring  from  conduct.  At- 
tending to  conduct,  to  judgment,  makes  the  attender 
feel  that  it  is  joy  to  do  it ;  attending  to  it  more  still 
makes  him  feel  that  it  is  the  commandment  of  the 
Eternal,  and  that  the  joy  got  from  it  is  joy  got  from 
fulfilling  the  commandment  of  the  Eternal.  The 


72  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

thankfulness  for  this  joy  is  thankfulness  to  the  Eter- 
nal ;  and  to  the  Eternal,  again,  is  due  that  further  joy 
which  comes  from  this  thankfulness.  "  The  fear  of 
the  Eternal,  that  is  wisdom ;  and  to  depart  from  evil, 
that  is  understanding."  "  The  fear  of  the  Eternal  " 
and  "  To  depart  from  evil "  here  mean,  and  are  put 
to  mean,  and,  by  the  very  laws  of  Hebrew  composi- 
tion which  make  the  second  phrase  in  a  parallelism 
repeat  the  first  in  other  words,  they  must  mean,  just 
the  same  thing.  Yet  what  man  of  soul,  after  he  had 
once  risen  to  feel  that  to  depart  from  evil  was  to  walk 
in  awful  observance  of  an  enduring  clew,  within  us 
and  without  us,  which  leads  to  happiness,  but  would 
prefer  to  say,  instead  of  "  to  depart  from  evil,"  "  the 
fear  of  the  Eternal  ?  " 

Henceforth,  then,  Israel  transferred  to  this  Eter- 
nal all  his  obligations.  Instead  of  saying,  "  Whoso 
keepcth  the  commandment  keepeth  his  own  soul,"  he 
rather  said,  "  My  soul,  wait  thou  still  upon  God,  for 
of  him  cometh  my  salvation !  "  Instead  of  saying, 
"  Bind  them  (the  laws  of  righteousness)  continually 
upon  thine  heart,  and  tie  them  about  thy  neck !  "  he 
rather  said,  "  Have  I  not  remembered  Thee  on  my 
bed,  and  thought  of  Thee  when  I  was  waking  (  "  The 
obligation  of  a  grateful  and  devout  self-surrender  to 
the  Eternal  replaced  all  sense  of  obligation  to  one's 
own  better  self,  one's  own  permanent  welfare.  The 
moralist's  rule :  "  Take  thought  for  your  permanent, 
not  your  monetary,  well-being,"  became  now: 
"  Honor  the  Eternal,  not  doing  thine  own  ways,  nor 
finding  thine  own  pleasure,  nor  speaking  thine  own 


RELIGION  GIVEN.  73 

words !  "  That  is,  with  Israel  religion  replaced 
morality. 

It  is  true,  out  of  the  humble  yet  divine  ground  of 
attention  to  conduct,  of  care  for  what  in  conduct  is 
right  and  wrong,  grew  morality  and  religion  both; 
but,  from  the  time  the  soul  felt  the  motive  of  religion, 
it  dropped  and  could  not  but  drop  the  other.  And 
the  motive  of  doing  right,  to  a  sincere  soul,  is  now 
really  no  longer  his  own  welfare,  but  to  please  God; 
and  it  bewilders  his  consciousness  if  you  tell  him  that 
he  does  right  out  of  self-love.  So  that  as  we  have 
said  that  the  first  man  who,  as  "  a  being  of  a  large 
discourse,  looking  before  and  after,"  controlled  the 
blind  momentary  impulses  of  the  instinct  of  self- 
preservation,  controlled  the  blind  momentary  im- 
pulses of  the  sexual  instinct,  had  morality  revealed  to 
him ;  so  in  like  manner  we  may  say,  that  the  first  man 
who  was  thrilled  with  gratitude,  devotion,  and  awe  at 
the  sense  of  joy  and  peace,  not  of  his  own  making, 
which  followed  the  exercise  of  this  self-control,  had 
religion  revealed  to  him.  And,  for  us  at  least,  this 
man  was  Israel. 

And  here,  as  we  have  already  pointed  out  the 
falseness  of  the  common  antithesis  between  ethical 
and  religious,  let  us  anticipate  the  objection  that  the 
religion  now  spoken  of  is  but  natural  religion,  by 
pointing  out  the  falseness  of  the  common  antithesis, 
also,  between  natural  and  revealed.  For  that  in  us 
which  is  really  natural  is,  in  truth,  revealed.  We 
awake  to  the  consciousness  of  it,  we  are  aware  of  it 
coming  forth  in  our  mind;  but  we  feel  that  we  did 


74:  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

not  make  it,  that  it  is  discovered  to  us,  that  it  is  what 
it  is  whether  we  will  or  no.  If  we  are  little  con- 
cerned about  it,  we  say  it  is  natural;  if  much,  we  say 
it  is  revealed.  But  the  difference  between  the  two  is 
not  one  of  kind,  only  of  degree.  The  real  antithesis, 
to  natural  and  revealed  alike,  is  invented,  artificial. 
Religion  springing  out  of  an  experience  of  the  power, 
the  grandeur,  the  necessity  of  righteousness,  is  re- 
vealed religion,  whether  we  find  it  in  Sophocles  or 
Isaiah ;  "  the  will  of  mortal  men  did  not  beget  it, 
neither  shall  oblivion  ever  put  it  to  sleep."  A  sys- 
tem of  theological  notions  about  personality,  essence, 
existence,  consubstantiality,  is  artificial  religion,  and 
is  the  proper  opposite  to  revealed;  since  it  is  a  re- 
ligion which  comes  forth  in  no  one's  consciousness, 
but  is  invented  by  the  Bishops  of  Winchester  and 
Gloucester,  and  personages  of  their  stamp, — able  men 
with  uncommon  talents  for  abstruse  reasoning.  The 
religion  is  in  no  sense  revealed,  just  because  it  is  in 
no  sense  natural ;  and  revealed  religion  is  properly  so 
named,  just  in  proportion  as  it  is  in  a  pre-eminent 
degree  natural. 

The  religion  of  the  Bible,  therefore,  is  well  said  to 
be  revealed,  because  the  great  natural  truth,  that 
"  Righteousness  tendeth  to  life,"  is  seized  and  exhib- 
ited there  with  such  incomparable  force  and  efficacy. 
All,  or  very  nearly  all,  the  nations  of  mankind  have 
recognized  the  importance  of  conduct,  and  have  at- 
tributed to  it  a  natural  obligation.  They,  however, 
looked  at  conduct,,  not  as  something  full  of  happiness 
and  joy,  but  as  something  one  could  not  manage  to  do 


RELIGION  GIVEN.  75 

without.  But :  "  Zion  heard  of  it  and  rejoiced.,  and 
the  daughters  of  Judah  were  glad,  because  of  thy 
judgments,  O  Eternal !  "  Happiness  is  our  being's 
end  and  aim,  and  no  one  has  ever  come  near  Israel  in 
feeling,  and  in  making  others  feel,  that  "  to  right- 
eousness belongs  happiness !  "  The  prodigies  and  tho 
marvellous  of  Bible-religion  are  common  to  it  with  all 
religions ;  the  love  of  righteousness,  in  this  eminency, 
is  its  own. 


5. 


The  real  germ  of  religious  consciousness,  therefore, 
out  of  which  sprang  Israel's  name  for  God,  to  which 
the  records  of  his  history  adapted  themselves,  and 
which  came  to  be  clothed  upon,  in  time,  with  a  mighty 
growth  of  poetry  and  tradition,  was  a  consciousness 
of  the  not  ourselves  which  makes  for  righteousness. 
And  the  way  to  convince  one's  self  of  this  is  by  study- 
ing their  literature  with  a  fair  mind,  and  with  the 
tact  which  letters,  surely,  alone  can  give.  For  the 
thing  turns  upon  understanding  the  manner  in  which 
men  have  thought,  their  way  of  using  words,  and 
what  they  mean  by  them.  And  if  to  know  letters 
is  to  know  the  best  that  has  been  thought  and  uttered 
in  tho  world,  then,  by  knowing  letters,  we  become  ac- 
quainted not  only  with  the  history,  but  also  with  the 
scope  and  powers,  of  the  instruments  men  employ  in 
thinking  and  speaking.  And  this  is  just  what  is 
sought  for. 

And  with  the  sort  of  experience  thus  gained,  ob- 


76  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

jections,  as  we  have  said,  will  be  found  not  so  much 
to  be  refuted  by  logical  reasoning  as  to  fall  of  them- 
selves. Is  it  objected :  "  Why,  if  the  Hebrews  of  the 
Bible  had  thus  eminently  the  sense  for  righteousness 
does  it  not  equally  distinguish  the  Jews  now  >  "  But 
does  not  experience  show  us  how  entirely  a  change  of 
circumstances  may  change  a  people's  character;  ami 
have  the  modern  Jews  lost  more  of  what  distinguished 
their  ancestors,  or  even  so  much,  as  the  modern 
Greeks  of  what  distinguished  theirs  ?  Where  is  now, 
among  the  Greeks,  the  dignity  of  life  of  Pericles,  the 
dignity  of  thought  and  of  art  of  Phidias  and  Plato  '. 
Is  it  objected,  that  the  Jews'  God  was  not  the  endur- 
ing power  that  makes  for  righteousness,  but  only  their 
tribal  God,  who  gave  them  the  victory  in  the  battle, 
and  plagued  them  that  hated  them  ?  But  how,  then, 
comes  their  literature  to  be  full  of  such  things  ;is : 
"  Show  me  thy  ways,  O  Eternal,  and  teach  me  thy 
paths ;  let  integrity  and  uprightness  preserve  me,  for 
I  put  my  trust  in  thee !  if  I  incline  unto  wickedness 
with  my  heart,  the  Eternal  will  not  hear  me, -for  they 
who  do  no  wickedness  walk  in  his  ways."  From  the 
sense  that  with  men  thus  guided  and  going  right  in 
goodness  it  could  not  but  be  well,  that  their  leaf  could 
not  wither,  and  that  whatsoever  they  did  must  pros- 
per, would  naturally  come  the  sense  that  in  their  wars 
with  an  enemy  the  enemy  should  be  put  to  confusion 
and  they  should  triumph.  But  how,  out  of  the  mere 
sense  that  their  enemy  should  be  put  to  confusion  ami 

they  should  triumph,  could  the  desire  for  goodi 

come?      Is  it  objected,  that  "  the  law  of  the  Lord  " 


RELIGION  GIVEN.  77 

•was  a  positive  traditionary  code  to  them,  standing  as 
a  mechanical  rule  which  held  them  in  awe  ?  that  their 
"  fear  of  the  Lord  "  was  superstitious  dread  of  an 
assumed,  magnified,  and  non-natural  man?  But 
why,  then,  are  they  always  saying:  "  Teach  me  thy 
law,  open  mine  eyes,  make  me  to  understand  wisdom 
secretly  !  "  if  all  the  law  they  were  thinking  of  stood 
stark  and  fixed  before  their  eyes  already  ?  And  what 
could  they  mean  by:  "I  will  love  thee,  O  Eternal, 
my  strength !  "  if  the  fear  they  meant  was  not  the 
awe-filled  observance  from  deep  attachment,  but  a 
servile  terror  ?  Is  it  objected,  that  their  conception 
of  righteousness  was  a  narrow  and  rigid  one,  centring 
mainly  in  what  they  called  judgment:  "Hate  the 
evil  and  love  the  good,  and  establish  judgment  in  the 
gate !  "  so  that  "  evil,"  for  them,  did  not  take  in  all 
faults  whatever  of  heart  and  conduct,  but  meant 
chiefly  oppression,  graspingness,  a  violent,  menda- 
cious tongue,  insolent  and  riotous  excess  ?  True, 
their  conception  of  righteousness  ivas  much  of  this 
kind,  and  it  was  narrow.  But  whoever  sincerely  at- 
tends to  conduct,  along  however  limited  a  line,  is  on 
his  way  to  bring  under  the  eye  of  conscience  all  con- 
duct whatever;  and  already,  in  the  Old  Testament, 
the  somewhat  monotonous  inculcation  of  the  social 
virtues  of  judgment  and  justice  is  continually  broken 
through  by  deeper  movements  of  personal  religion. 
Every  time  that  the  words  contrition  or  humility  drop 
from  the  lips  of  prophet  or  psalmist,  Christianity  ap- 
pears. Is  it  objected,  finally,  that' even  their  own 
narrow  conception  of  righteousness  this  people  could 


78  LITERATURE  AXD  DOGMA. 

not  follow,  but  were  perpetually  oppressive,  grasp- 
ing, slanderous,  sensual  ?  Why,  the  very  interest  and 
importance  of  their  witness  to  righteousness  lies  in 
their  having  felt  so  deeply  the  necessity  of  what  they 
were  so  little  able  to  accomplish !  They  had  the 
strongest  impulses  in  the  world  to  violence  and  excess, 
the  keenest  pleasure  in  gratifying  these  iinpul>'-.-. 
And  yet  they  had  such  a  sense  of  the  natural,  nen  — 
sary  connection  between  conduct  and  happiness,  that 
they  kept  always  saying,  in  spite  of  themselves :  "  To 
him  that  ordereth  his  conversation  right  shall  be 
shown  the  salvation  of  God !  " 

X'-w  manifestly  this  sense  of  theirs  has  a  double 
force  for  the  rest  of  mankind, — an  evidential  force 
and  a  practical  force.  Its  evidential  force  is  in  keep- 
ing in  men's  view,  by  the  example  of  the  signal  ap- 
parition in  one  branch  of  our  race  of  the  sense  for 
conduct  and  righteousness,  the  reality  and  natural- 
ness of  that  sense.  Clearly,  unless  a  sense  or  endow- 
ment of  human  nature,  however  in  itself  real  and 
beneficent,  has  some  signal  representative  among 
mankind,  it  tends  to  be  pressed  upon  by  other  senses 
and  endowments,  to  suffer  from  its  own  want  of  en- 
ergy, and  to  be  more  and  more  pushed  out  of  sight. 
Any  one,  for  instance,  who  will  go  to  the  Potter 
and  will  look  at  the  tawdry,  glaring,  ill-proportioned 
ware  which  is  being  made  there  for  certain  American 
and  colonial  markets,  will  easily  convince  himself 
how,  in  our  people  and  kindred,  the  sense  for  the  arts 
of  design,  though  it  i-  certainly  planted  in  human  na- 
ture, might  dwindle  and  sink  to  almost  nothing,  if  it 


RELIGION  GIVEN.  79 

were  not  for  the  witness  borne  to  this  sense,  and  the 
protest  offered  against  its  extinction,  by  the  brilliant 
aesthetic  endowment  and  artistic  work  of  ancient 
Greece.  And  one  cannot  look  out  over  the  world 
without  seeing  that  the  same  sort  of  thing  might  very 
well  befall  conduct,  too,  if  it  were  not  for  the  signal 
witness  borne  by  Israel. 

Thou  there  is  the  practical  force  of  their  example ; 
and  this  is  even  more  important.  Every  one  knows, 
how  those  who  want  to  cultivate  any  sense  or  endow- 
ment in  themselves  must  be  habitually  conversant 
with  the  works  of  people  who  have  been  eminent  for 
that  sense,  must  study  them,  catch  inspiration  from 
them ;  only  in  this  way,  indeed,  can  progress  be  made. 
And  as  long  as  the  world  lasts,  all  who  want  to  make 
progress  in  righteousness  will  come  to  Israel  for  in- 
spiration, as  to  the  people  who  have  had  the  sense  for 
righteousness  most  glowing  and  strongest;  and  in 
hearing  and  reading  the  words  Israel  has  uttered  for 
us,  careers  for  conduct  will  find  a  glow  and  a  force 
they  could  find  nowhere  else.  As  well  imagine  a  man 
with  a  sense  for  sculpture  not  cultivating  it  by  the 
help  of  the  remains  of  Greek  art,  or  a  man  with  a 
sense  for  poetry  not  cultivating  it  by  the  help  of 
Homer  and  Shakespeare,  as  a  man  with  a  sense  for 
conduct  not  cultivating  it  by  the  help  of  the  Bible! 
And  this  sense,  in  the  satisfying  of  which  we  come 
naturally  to  the  Bible,  is  a  sense  which  the  generality 
of  men  have  far  more  decidedly  than  they  have  the 
sense  for  art  or  for  science ;  at  any  rate,  whether  we 


80  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

have  it  decidedly  or  no,  it  is  the  sense  which  has  to 
do  with  three  fourths  of  human  life. 

This  does  truly  constitute  for  Israel  a  most  extra- 
ordinary distinction.  In  spite  of  all  which  in  them 
and  their  character  is  unattractive,  nay,  repellent; — 
in  spite  of  their  short-comings  even  in  righteousness 
itself  and  their  insignificance  in  everything  else, — 
this  petty,  unsuccessful,  unamiable  people,  without 
politics,  without  science,  without  art,  without  charm, 
deserve  their  great  place  in  the  world's  regard,  and 
are  likely  to  have  it  greater,  as  the  world  goes  on, 
rather  than  less.  It  is  secured  to  them  by  the  facts 
of  human  nature,  and  by  the  unalterable  constitution 
of  things.  "  God  has  given  commandment  to  bless, 
and  he  hath  blessed,  and  we  cannot  reverse  it!  lie 
hath  not  seen  iniquity  in  Jacob,  and  he  hath  not  seen 
perverseness  in  Israel;  the  Eternal,  his  God,  is  with 
him!" 

Any  one  does  a  good  deed  who  removes  stum- 
bling-blocks out  of  the  way  of  feeling  and  profiting 
by  the  witness  left  by  this  people.  And  so,  instead 
of  making  our  Hebrew  speakers  mean,  in  their  use 
of  the  word  God,  a  scientific  affirmation  which  never 
entered  into  their  heads,  and  about  which  many  will 
dispute,  let  us  content  ourselves  with  making  them 
mean,  as  matter  of  scientific  fact  and  experience, 
what  they  really  did  mean  as  such,  and  what  is  un- 
challengeable. Let  us  put  into  their  "Eternal  "  and 
"  God  "  no  more  science  than  they  did, — "  the  en- 
during power,  not  ourselves,  which  makes  for  right- 
eousness." They  meant  more  by  these  names,  but 


RELIGION   GIVEN.  81 

they  meant  this ;  and  what  they  meant  more  they 
could  not  grasp  fully,  but  this  they  grasped  fully. 
The  sense  which  this  will  give  us  for  their  words  is 
at  least  solid ;  so  that  we  may  find  it  of  use  as  a  guide 
to  steady  us,  and  to  give  us  a  constant  clew  in  fol- 
lowing what  they  say. 

And  is  it  so  unworthy  ?  It  is  true,  unless  we  can 
fill  it  with  as  much  feeling  as  they  did,  the  mere 
possessing  it  will  not  carry  us  far.  But  matters  are 
not  much  mended  by  taking  their  language  of  approx- 
imative figure  and  using  it  for  the  language  of  scien- 
tific definition;  or  by  crediting  them  with  our  own 
dubious  science,  deduced  from  metaphysical  ideas 
which  they  never  had.  A  better  way  than  this, 
surely,  is  to  take  their  fact  of  experience,  to  keep  it 
steadily  for  our  basis  in  using  their  language,  and 
to  see  whether  from  using  their  language  with  the 
ground  of  this  real  and  firm  sense  to  it,  as  they  them- 
selves did,  somewhat  of  their  feeling,  too,  may  not 
grow  upon  us.  At  least  we  shall  know  what  we  are 
saying ;  and  that  what  we  are  saying  is  true,  however 
inadequate. 

But  is  this  confessed  inadequateness  of  our  speech, 
concerning  that  which  we  will  not  call  by  the  negative 
name  of  the  unknown  and  unknowable,  but  rather  by 
the  name  of  the  unexplored  and  the  inexpressible,  and 
of  which  the  Hebrews  themselves  said,  "  It  is  more 
high  than  heaven,  what  canst  thou  do  ?  deeper  than 
hell,  what  canst  thou  know  ?  "  — is  this  reservedness 
of  affirmation  about  God  loss  worthy  of  him,  than  the 
astounding  particularity  and  license  of  affirmation  of 
6 


82  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

our  dogmatists,  as  if  he  were  a  man  in  the  next  street  ? 
Nay,  and  nearly  all  the  difficulties  which  torment 
theology — as  the  reconciling  God's  justice  with  hi> 
mercy,  and  so  on — come  from  this  license  and  partic- 
ularity; theologians  having  precisely,  as  it  would 
often  seem,  built  up  a  wall  first,  in  order  afterwards 
to  run  their  own  heads  against  it. 

This,  we  say,  is  what  comes  of  too  much  talent  for 
abstract  reasoning.  One  cannot  help  seeing  tin- 
theory  of  causation  and  such  things,  where  one  should 
only  see  a  far  simpler  matter:  the  power,  the  gran- 
deur, the  necessity  of  righteousness.  To  be  sure,  a 
perception  of  these  is  at  the  bottom  of  popular  re- 
ligion, underneath  all  the  extravagances  theologians 
have  taught  people  to  utter,  and  makes  the  whole 
value  of  it.  For  the  sake  of  this  true  practical  per- 
ception one  might  be  quite  content  to  leave  at  rest 
a  matter  where  practice,  after  all,  is  everything,  and 
theory  nothing.  Only,  when  religion  is  called  in 
question  because  of  the  extravagances  of  theology  be- 
ing passed  off  as  religion,  one  disengages  and  helps 
religion  by  showing  their  utter  delusiveness.  The\ 
arose  out  of  the  talents  of  able  men  for  reasoning,  and 
their  want  (not  through  lack  of  talent,  for  the  thing 
needs  none;  it  needs  only  time,  trouble,  good  fortune, 
and  a  fair  mind;  but  through  their  being  taken  up 
with  their  reasoning  power), — their  want  of  literary 
experience.  Unluckily,  the  sphere  where  they  show 
their  talents  is  one  for  literary  experience  rather  than 
for  reasoning.  And  this  at  the  very  outset,  in  the 
dealings  of  theologians  with  that  starting-point  of  our 


RELIGION  GIVEN.  83 

religion, — the  experience  of  Israel  as  set  forth  in  the 
Old  Testament, — has  produced,  we  have  seen,  great 
confusion.  Naturally,  as  we  shall  hereafter  see,  the 
confusion  becomes  worse  confounded  as  they  pro- 
ceed. 


CHAPTER  II. 

ABEBGLATJBE    INVADING. 

WHEN  people  ask  for  our  attention  because  of  what 
has  passed,  they  say,  "  in  the  Council  of  the  Trinity," 
and  been  promulgated,  for  our  direction,  by  "  a  Per- 
sonal First  Cause,  the  moral  and  intelligent  Governor 
of  the  universe,"  it  is  certainly  open  to  any  man  to 
refuse  to  hear  them,  on  the  plea  that  the  very  thing 
they  start  with  they  have  no  means  of  proving.  And 
we  see  that  many  do  so  refuse  their  attention;  and 
that  the  breach  there  is,  for  instance,  between  popular 
religion  and  what  is  called  science,  comes  from  this 
cause.  But  it  is  altogether  different  when  people  ask 
for  our  attention  on  the  strength  of  this  other  first 
principle:  "To  righteousness  belongs  happiness;" 
or  this:  "  There  is  an  enduring  power,  not  ourselves, 
which  makes  for  righteousness."  The  more  we  medi- 
tate on  this  starting-ground  of  theirs,  the  more  we 
shall  find  that  there  is  solidity  in  it,  and  the  more  we 
shall  be  inclined  to  go  along  with  them,  and  to  see 
what  they  can  make  of  it. 

And  herein  is  the  advantage  of  giving  this  phiin. 
though  restricted,  sense  to  the  Bible  phrases:  "  lie 
that  keepeth  the  law,  happy  is  he!  "  and,  "  Wlms.  • 
trusteth  in  the  Eternal,  happy  is  he  !  "  P>v  tradition, 
emotion,  imagination,  the  Hebrews,  no  doubt,  came  t<> 

84 


ABERGLAU'BE  INVADING.  85 

attach  more  than  this  plain  sense  to  these  phrases; 
but  this  plain,  solid,  and  experimental  sense  they  at- 
tached to  them  at  bottom,  they  attached  originally; 
and  in  attaching  it  they  were  on  sure  ground  of  fact, 
where  we  can  all  go  with  them.  Their  words,  we 
shall  find,  taken  in  this  sense  have  quite  a  new  force 
for  us,  and  an  indisputable  one.  It  is  worth  while 
accustoming  ourselves  to  use  them  thus,  in  order  to 
bring  out  this  force  and  to  see  how  real  it  is,  limited 
though  it  be,  and  unpretending  as  it  may  appear. 
The  very  substitution  of  the  word  Eternal  for  the 
word  Lord  is  something  gained  in  this  direction. 
The  word  Eternal  has  less  of  particularity  and  pal- 
pability for  the  imagination,  but  what  it  does  affirm 
is  real  and  verifiable. 

Let  vis  fix  firmly  in  our  minds,  with  this  limited 
but  real  sense  to  the  words  we  employ,  the  connec- 
tion of  ideas  which  was  ever  present  to  the  spirit  of 
the  Hebrew  people.  "  In  the  way  of  righteousness 
is  life,  and  in  the  pathway  thereof  is  no  death;  as 
righteousness  tendeth  to  life,  so  he  that  pursueth  evil, 
pursueth  it  to  his  own  death ;  as  the  whirlwind  pass- 
eth,  so  is  the  wicked  no  more,  but  the  righteous  is  an 
everlasting  foundation ;  "—here  is  the  ground  idea. 
Yet  there  are  continual  momentary  suggestions  which 
make  for  gratifying  our  apparent  self,  for  unright- 
eousness ;  nevertheless,  what  makes  for  our  real  self, 
for  righteousness,  is  lasting,  and  holds  good  in  the 
end.  Therefore :  "  Trust  in  the  Eternal  with  all 
thine  heart,  and  lean  not  unto  thine  own  understand- 
in  ir  ;  there  is  no  wisdom,  nor  understanding,  nor  coun- 


80  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

sel  against  the  Eternal;  there  is  a  way  that  seemeth 
right  unto  a  man,  but  the  end  thereof  are  the  ways  of 
death ;  there  are  many  devices  in  a  man's  heart,  never- 
theless the  counsel  of  the  Eternal,  that  shall 
stand."  To  follow  this  counsel  of  the  Eternal  is  the 
only  true  wisdom  and  understanding:  "  The  fear  of 
the  Eternal,  that  is  wisdom,  and  to  depart  from  evil, 
that  is  understanding."  It  is  also  happiness: 
"  Blessed  is  every  one  that  feareth  the  Eternal,  that 
walketh  in  his  ways ;  happy  shall  he  be,  and  it  shall 
be  well  with  him !  O  taste  and  see  how  gracious  the 
Eternal  is !  blessed  is  the  man  that  trusteth  in  him. 
Blessed  is  the  man  whose  delight  is  in  the  law  of  the 
Eternal ;  his  leaf  shall  not  wither,  and  whatsoever 
he  doeth,  it  shall  prosper."  And  the  more  a  man 
walks  in  this  way  of  righteousness,  the  more  he  feels 
himself  borne  by  a  power  not  his  own :  "  Not  by 
might  and  not  by  power,  but  by  my  spirit,  saith  the 
Eternal.  O  Eternal,  I  know  that  the  way  of  man  is 
not  in  himself!  all  things  come  of  thee;  in  thy  light 
do  we  see  light ;  the  preparation  of  the  heart  in  man 
is  from  the  Eternal.  The  Eternal  ordereth  a  good 
man's  going,  and  making  his  way  acceptable  to  him- 
self." But  man  feels,  too,  how  far  he  comes  from 
fulfilling  or  even  from  fully  perceiving  this  true  law 
of  his  being,  these  indications  of  the  Eternal,  the  way 
of  righteousness.  lie  says,  and  must  say:  "I  am 
a  stranger  upon  earth,  O,  hide  not  thy  commandments 
from  me!  Enter  not  into  judgment  with  thy  ser- 
vant, O  Eternal,  for  in  thy  sight  shall  no  man  living 
be  justified !  "  Nevertheless,  as  a  man  holds  on  to 


ABERGLAUBE  INVADING.  87 

practise  as  well  as  he  can,  and  avoids,  at  any  rate. 
"•'  presumptuous  sins,"  courses  he  can  clearly  see  to 
l)i'  wrong,  films  fall  away  from  his  eyes,  the  indica- 
tions of  the  Eternal  come  out  more  and  more  fully, 
we  are  cleansed  from  faults  which  were  hitherto  se- 
cret to  us :  "  Examine  me,  O  God,  and  prove  me,  try 
out  my  reins  and  my  heart ;  look  well  if  there  be  any 
way  of  wickedness  in  me,  and  lead  me  in  the  way 
everlasting!  O  cleanse  thou  me  from  my  secret 
faults !  thou  hast  proved  my  heart,  thou  hast  visited 
me  in  the  night,  thou  hast  tried  me  and  shalt  find 
nothing."  And  the  more  we  thus  get  to  keep  inno- 
cency,  the  more  we  wonderfully  find  joy  and  peace: 
"  O  how  plentiful  is  thy  goodness  which  thou  hast 
laid  up  for  them  that  fear  thee !  Thou  shalt  hide 
them  in  the  secret  of  thy  presence  from  the  provoking 
of  men.  Thou  wilt  show  me  the  path  of  life,  in  thy 
presence  is  the  fulness  of  joy,  at  thy  right  hand  there 
are  pleasures  forevermore."  More  and  more  this 
dwelling  on  the  joy  and  peace  from  righteousness, 
and  on  the  power  which  makes  for  righteousness,  be- 
comes a  man's  consolation  and  refuge :  "  Thou  art 
my  hiding- place, thou  shalt  preserve  me  from  trouble; 
if  my  delight  had  not  been  in  thy  law,  I  should  have 
perished  in  my  trouble.  When  I  am  in  heaviness,  I 
will  think  upon  God ;  a  refuge  from  the  storm,  a 
shadow  from  the  heat !  O  set  me  up  upon  the  rock 
that  is  higher  than  I !  The  name  of  the  Eternal  is  as 
a  strong  tower,  the  righteousness  runneth  into  it  and 
is  safe."  And  the  more  we  experience  this  shelter, 
the  ii:<>re  we  come  to  feel  that  it  is  protecting  even  to 


88  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

tenderness :  "  Like  as  a  father  pitieth  his  own  chil- 
dren, even  so  is  the  Eternal  merciful  unto  them  that 
fear  him."  Nay,  every  other  support,  we  at  last 
find,  every  other  attachment,  may  fail  us,  this  alone 
fails  not :  "  Can  a  woman  forgot  her  sucking  child, 
that  she  should  not  have  compassion  on  the  son  of  her 
womb?  Yea,  they  may  forget,  yet  will  I  not  forgot 
thee!" 

All  this,  we  say,  rests  originally  upon  the  simple 
but  solid  experience :  "  Conduct  brings  happiness," 
or,  "  Righteousness  tendeth  to  life!  "  And,  by  mak- 
ing it  again  rest  there,  we  bring  out  in  a  new  but  most 
real  and  sure  way  its  truth  and  its  power. 

For  it  has  not  always  continued  to  rest  there,  and 
in  popular  religion  now,  as  we  manifestly  see,  it  rests 
there  no  longer.  It  is  worth  while  to  follow  the  way 
in  which  this  change  gradually  happened,  and  the 
thing  ceased  to  rest  there.  Israel's  original  percep- 
tion was  true :  "  Righteousness  tendeth  to  life!  "  The 
workers  of  righteousness  have  a  covenant  irilh  the 
Eternal,  that  their  work  shall  be  blessed  and  blessing, 
and  shall  endure  forever.  But  what  apparent  con- 
tradictions was  this  true  original  perception  destined 
to  meet  with ;  what  vast  delays,  at  any  rate,  were  to 
be  interposed  before  its  truth  could  become  manifest ! 
And  how  instructively  the  successive  documents  of 
the  Bible- — which  popular  religion  treats  as  if  it  were 
all  of  one  piece,  one  time,  and  one  mind — bring  out 
the  effect  on  Israel  of  these  delays  and  contradictions  ! 
What  a  distance  between  the  eighteenth  Psalm  jind 
the  eighty-ninth,  between  the  Book  of  Proverbs  and 


ABERGLAUBE  INVADING.  89 

the  Book  of  Ecclesiastes !  A  time  some  thousand 
years  before  Christ,  the  golden  age  of  Israel,  is  the 
date  to  which  the  eighteenth  Psalm  and  the  chief  part 
of  the  Book  of  Proverbs  belong ;  this  is  the  .time  in 
which  the  sense  of  the  necessary  connection  between 
righteousness  and  happiness  appears  with  its  full 
simplicity  and  force.  "  The  righteous  shall  be  rec- 
ompensed in  the  earth,  much  more  the  wicked  and  the 
sinner !  "  is  the  constant  burden  of  the  Book  of  Prov- 
erbs. And  David,  in  the  eighteenth  Psalm,  expresses 
his  conviction  of  the  intimate  dependence  of  happi- 
ness upon  conduct,  in  terms  which,  though  they 
are  not  without  a  certain  crudity,  are  yet 
far  more  edifying  in  their  truth  and  naturalness 
than  those  morbid  sentimentalities  of  Protestantism 
about  man's  natural  vileness  and  Christ's  imputed 
righteousness,  to  which  they  are  diametrically  op- 
posed. "  I  have  kept  the  ways  of  the  Eternal,"  he 
says ;  "  I  was  also  upright  before  him,  and  I  kept  my- 
self from  mine  iniquity;  therefore  hath  the  Eternal 
rewarded  me  according  to  my  righteousness,  accord- 
ing to  the  cleanness  of  my  hands  hath  he  recompensed 
me;  great  prosperity  showeth  he  unto  his  king,  acd 
showeth  loving-kindness  unto  David,  his  anointed, 
and  unto  his  seed  forevermore."  That  may  be  called 
the  classic  passage  for  that  covenant  Israel  always 
thinks  and  speaks  of,  as  made  by  God  with  his  servant 
David,  Israel's  second  founder.  And  this  covenant 
was  but  a  renewal  of  the  covenant  made  with  Israel's 
first  founder,  —  God's  servant  Abraham,  —  that 
"  righteousness  shall  inherit  a  blessing,"  and  that 


90  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

"  in  his  seed  all  nations  of  the  earth  shall  be  blessed." 
Bnt  what  a  change  in  the  eighty-ninth  Psalm,  a 
few  hundred  years  later !  "  Eternal,  where  are  thy 
former  loving-kindnesses  which  thou  swarest  unto 
David?'  thou  hast  abhorred  and  forsaken  thine 
anointed,  thou  hast  made  void  the  covenant;  O  re- 
member how  short  my  time  is !  "  "  The  righteous 
shall  be  recompensed  in  the  earth !  "  the  speaker 
means ;  "  my  death  is  near,  and  death  ends  all ; 
where,  Eternal,  is  thy  promise  ?  " 

Most  remarkable,  indeed,  is  the  inward  travail  to 
which,  in  the  six  hundred  years  that  followed  the  age 
of  David  and  Solomon,  the  many  and  rude  shocks  be- 
falling Israel's  fundamental  idea,  "  Righteousness 
tendeth  to  life  and  he  that  pursueth  evil  pursueth  it 
to  his  own  death,"  gave  occasion.  "  Wherefore  do 
the  wicked  live,"  asks  Job,  "  become  old,  yea,  are 
mighty  in  power?  Their  houses  are  safe  from  fear, 
neither  is  the  rod  of  God  upon  them  ?  "  Job  him- 
self is  righteous,  and  yet :  "  On  mine  eyelids  is  the 
shadow  of  death,  not  for  any  injustice  in  mine 
hands."  All  through  the  Book  of  Job,  the  question 
how  this  can  be  is  over  and  over  again  asked  and 
never  answered;  inadequate  solutions  are  offered  and 
repelled,  but  an  adequate  solution  is  never  reached. 
The  only  solution  readied  is  that  of  silence  before  the 
insoluble:  "  T  will  lay  mine  hand  upon  my  mouth." 
The  two  perceptions  are  left  confronting  one  another 
like  Kantian  antimonies.  "  The  earth  is  given  unto 
the  hand  of  the  wicked  !  "  and  yet:  "  The  council  of 
the  wicked  is  far  from  me,  God  rewardeth  him,  and 


ABERGLAUBE  INVADING.  Ql 

he  shall  know  it !  "  And  this  last,  the  original  per- 
ception, remains  indestructible.  The  Book  of  Ec- 
clesiastes,  again,  has  been  called  sceptical,  epicurean ; 
it  is  certainly  without  the  glow  and  hope  which  ani- 
mate the  Bible  in  general.  It  belongs,  probably,  to 
the  latter  half  of  the  fifth  century  before  Christ,  to 
the  time  of  Xehemiah  and  Malachi,  with  difficulties 
pressing  the  newly  restored  Jewish  community  on  all 
sides,  with  a  Persian  governor  lording  it  in  Jerusa- 
lem, with  resources  light  and  taxes  heavy,  with  the 
cancer  of  poverty  eating  into  the  mass  of  the  people, 
with  the  rich  estranged  from  the  poor  and  from  the 
national  traditions,  with  the  priesthood  slack,  insin- 
cere, and  worthless.  Composed  under  such  circum- 
stances, the  book  has  been  said,  and  with  justice,  to 
breathe  "  resignation  at  the  grave  of  Israel ;  "  its 
author  sees  "  the  tears  of  the  oppressed,  and  they  had 
no  comforter,  and  on  the  side  of  their  oppressors 
there  was  power ;  wherefore  I  praised  the  dead  which 
are  already  dead  more  than  the  living  which  are  yet 
alive."  He  sees  "  all  things  come  alike  to  all,  there 
is  one  event  to  the  righteous  and  to  the  wicked."  At- 
tempts at  a  philosophic  indifference  appear,  at  a 
sceptical  suspension  of  judgment,  at  an  easy  ne  quid 
nimis:  "  Be  not  righteous  overmuch,  neither  make 
thyself  over-wise !  why  shouldst  thou  destroy  thy- 
self ?  "  Vain  attempts,  even  at  a  moment  which  fa- 
vored them !  shows  of  scepticism,  vanishing  as  soon 
as  uttered  before  the  intractable  conscientiousness  of 
Israel !  For  the  Preacher  makes  answer  against 
himself:  "  Though  a  sinner  do  evil  a  hundred  times 


92  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

and  his  days  be  prolonged,  yet  surely  I  know  that  it 
shall  be  well  with  them  that  fear  God;  but  it  shall 
not  be  well  with  the  wicked,  because  he  feareth  not 
before  God."  The  Preacher's  contemporary,  too, 
Malachi,  felt  the  pressure  of  the  same  circumstances, 
had  the  same  occasions  of  despondency.  All  around 
him  people  were  saying :  "  Every  one  that  doeth  evil 
is  good  in  the  sight  of  the  Eternal,  and  he  delighteth 
in  them ;  where  is  the  God  of  judgment  ?  it  is  vain  to 
serve  God,  and  what  profit  is  it  that  we  have  kept 
his  ordinance  ? "  What  a  change  from  the  clear 
certitude  of  the  golden  age:  "  As  the  whirlwind  pass- 
eth,  so  is  the  wicked  no  more;  but  the  righteous  is  an 
everlasting  foundation !  "  But  yet,  with  all  the  cer- 
titude of  this  happier  past,  Malachi  answers  on  be- 
half of  the  Eternal :  "  Unto  you  that  fear  my  name 
shall  the  Sun  of  Righteousness  arise  with  healing  in 
his  wings !  " 

Many  there  were,  no  doubt,  who  had  lost  all  living 
sense  that  the  promises  were  made  to  righteousness; 
who  took  them  mechanically,  as  made  to  them  and 
sure  to  them  because  they  were  the  seed  of  Abraham, 
because  they  were,  in  St.  Paul's  words:  "Israelites, 
to  whom  pertain  the  adoption  and  the  glory  and  the 
covenants  and  the  giving  of  the  law  and  the  service 
of  God,  and  whose  are  the  fathers."  Tin  sc  people 
were  perplexed  and  indignant  when  the  privileged 
seed  became  unprosperous ;  and  they  looked  for  some 
great  change  to  be  wrought  in  the  fallen  fortunes  of 
Israel,  wrought  miraculously  and  mechanically. 
And  they  were,  no  doubt,  the  great  majority,  and  of 


ABERGLAUBE  INVADING.  93 

the  mass  of  Jewish  expectation  about  the  future  they 
stamped  the  character.  With  them,  however,  our  in- 
terest does  not  for  the  present  lie;  it  lies  with  the 
prophets  and  those  whom  the  prophets  represent.  It 
lies  with  the  continued  depositaries  of  the  original 
revelation  to  Israel,  Righteousness  tendeth  to  life! 
who  saw  clearly  enough  that  the  promises  were  to 
righteousness,  and  that  what  fendeth  to  life  was  not 
the  seed  of  Abraham  taken  in  itself,  but  righteous- 
ness. With  this  minority,  and  with  its  noble  repre- 
sentatives the  prophets,  our  present  interest  lies ;  and 
the  development  of  their  conviction  about  righteous- 
ness is  what  it  here  imports  us  to  trace.  An  inde- 
structible faith  that  "  the  righteous  is  an  everlasting 
foundation  "  they  had ;  yet  they,  too,  as  we  have  seen, 
could  not  but  notice,  as  time  went  on,  many  things 
which  seemed  apparently  to  contradict  this  their  be- 
lief. In  private  life,  there  was  the  frequent  pros- 
perity of  the  sinner.  In  the  life  of  nations,  there 
was  the  rise  and  power  of  the  great  unrighteous  king- 
doms of  the  heathen,  the  unsuccessfulness  of  Israel ; 
though  Israel  was  undoubtedly,  as  compared  with  the 
heathen,  the  depositary  and  upholder  of  the  idea  of 
righteousness.  Therefore  prophets  and  righteous 
men  also,  like  the  unspiritual  crowd,  could  not  but 
look  ardently  to  the  future,  to  some  great  change  and 
redress  in  store. 

At  the  same  time,  although  their  experience,  that 
the  righteous  were  often  afflicted  and  the  wicked  often 
prosperous,  could  not  but  perplex  pious  Hebrews ;  al- 
though their  conscience  felt,  and  could  not  but  frel. 


9i  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

that,  compared  with  the  other  nations  with  whom 
they  came  in  contact,  they  themselves  and  their 
fathers  had  a  concern  for  righteousness,  and  an  unre- 
mitting sense  of  its  necessity,  which  put  them  in  cove- 
nant with  the  Eternal  who  makes  for  righteousness, 
and  which  rendered  the  triumph  of  other  nations  over 
them  a  triumph  of  people  who  cared  little  for  right- 
eousness over  people  who  cared  for  it  much,  and  a 
cause  of  perplexity,  therefore,  to  men's  trust  in  the 
Eternal, — though  their  conscience  told  them  this,  yet 
of  their  own  short-comings  and  perversities  it  told 
them  louder  still,  and  that  their  sins  had  in  truth  been 
enough  to  break  their  covenant  with  the  Eternal  a 
thousand  times  over,  and  to  bring  justly  upon  them 
all  the  miseries  they  suffered.  To  enable  them  to 
meet  the  terrible  day,  when  the  Eternal  would  avenge 
him  of  his  enemies  and  make  up  his  jewels,  they 
themselves  needed,  they  knew,  the  voice  of  a  second 
Elijah,  a  change  of  the  inner  man,  repentance. 

2. 

And  then,  with  Malachi's  testimony  on  its  lips  to 
the  truth  of  Israel's  ruling  idea,  Righteousness  ictnl- 
ctli  to  life!  died  prophecy.  For  four  hundred  ycMr- 
the  mind  of  Israel  revolved  those  wonderful  utter- 
ances, which,  on  the  ear  of  even  those  who  only  half 
understand  them,  and  who  do  not  at  all  believe  them, 
strike  with  such  strange,  incomparable  power, — the 
promises  of  prophecy.  For  four  hundred  years, 
through  defeat  and  humiliation,  the  Hebrew  race 


ABERGLAUBE  INVADING.  95 

pondered  those  magnificent  assurances  that  '"  the 
Eternal's  arm  is  not  shortened,"  that  "  righteousness 
shall  be  forever,"  and  that  the  future  would  prove 
this,  even  if  the  present  did  not.  "  The  Eternal 
fainteth  not,  neither  is  weary;  he  giveth  power  to  the 
faint.  They  that  wait  on  the  Eternal  shall  renew 
their  strength ;  the  redeemed  of  the  Eternal  shall  re- 
turn and  come  with  singing  to  Zion,  and  everlasting 
joy  shall  he  upon  their  head;  they  shall  repair  the 
old  wastes,  the  desolations  of  many  generations ;  and 
I,  the  Eternal,  will  make  an  everlasting  covenant  with 
them.  The  Eternal  shall  be  thine  everlasting  light, 
and  the  days  of  thy  mourning  shall  be  ended;  the 
Gentiles  shall  come  to  thy  light,  and  kings  to  the 
brightness  of  thy  rising,  and  my  righteousness  shall 
be  forever,  and  my  salvation  shall  not  be  abolished !  " 
The  prophets  themselves,  speaking  when  the  ruin 
of  their  country  was  impending,  or  soon  after  it  had 
happened,  had  had  in  prospect  the  actual  restoration 
of  Jerusalem,  the  submission  of  the  nations  around, 
and  the  empire  of  David  and  Solomon  renewed.  But 
as  time  went  on,  and  Israel's  return  from  captivity 
and  resettlement  of  Jerusalem  by  no  means  answered 
his  glowing  anticipations  from  them,  these  anticipa- 
tions had  more  and  more  a  construction  put  upon 
them  which  set  at  defiance  the  uriworthiness  and  in- 
felicities of  the  actual  present,  which  filled  up  what 
prophecy  left  in  outline,  and  which  embraced  the 
world.  The  Hebrew  Amos,  of  the  eighth  century 
before  Christ,  promises  to  his  hearers  a  recovery  from 
their  ruin  in  which  they  "  shall  possess  the  remnant 


96  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

of  Edom ;  "  the  Greek  or  Aramaic  Amos  of  the  Chris- 
tian era,  whose  words  St.  James  produces  in  the  Con- 
ference at  Jerusalem,  promises  a  recovery  for  Israel 
in  which  "  the  residue  of  men  shall  seek  the  Eternal." 
This  is  but  a  specimen  of  what  went  forward  on  a 
large  scale.  The  redeemer,  whom  the  unknown 
prophet  of  the  captivity  foretold  to  Zion,  has,  a  few 
hundred  years  later,  for  the  writer  whom  we  call 
Daniel  and  for  his  contemporaries,  become  the  mirac- 
ulous agent  of  Israel's  new  restoration,  the  heaven- 
sent executor  of  the  Eternal's  judgment,  and  the 
bringer-in  of  the  kingdom  of  righteousness ;  the  Mes- 
siah, in  short,  of  our  popular  religion.  "  One  like 
the  Son  of  Man  came  with  the  clouds  of  heaven,  and 
came  to  the  Ancient  of  Days,  and  there  was  given 
him  dominion  and  glory,  and  a  kingdom,  that  all  peo- 
ple, nations,  and  languages  should  serve  him ;  and 
the  kingdom  and  dominion  shall  be  given  to  the  peo- 
ple of  the  saints  of  the  Most  High."  An  impartial 
criticism  will  hardly  find  in  the  Old  Testament 
writers  before  the  times  of  the  Maccabees  (and  cer- 
tainly not  in  the  passages  usually  quoted  to  prove 
it)  the  doctrine  of  the  immortality  of  the  soul  or  of 
the  resurrection  of  the  dead.  But  by  the  time  of  the 
Maccabees,  when  this  passage  of  the  Book  of  Daniel 
was  written,  in  the  second  century  before  Christ,  the 
Jews  have  undoubtedly  become  familiar,  not  indeed 
with  the  idea  of  the  immortality  of  the  soul  as  philos- 
ophers like  Plato  conceived  it,  but  with  the  notion 
of  a  resurrection  of  the  dead  to  take  their  trial  for  no- 


ABERGLAUBE  INVADING.  97 

ceptance  or  rejection  in  the  Messiah's  judgment  and 
kingdom. 

To  this  has  swelled  Israel's  original  and  fruitful 
thesis :  "  Righteousness  tendeth  to  life !  as  the  whirl- 
wind passeth,  so  is  the  wicked  no  more,  but  the  right- 
eous is  an  everlasting  foundation !  "  The  phantas- 
magories  of  move  prodigal  and  wild  imaginations 
have  mingled  with  the  work  of  Israel's  austere  spirit ; 
Babylon,  Persia,  Egypt,  even  Greece,  have  left  their 
trace  there;  but  the  unchangeable  substructure  re- 
mains, and  on  that  substructure  is  everything  built 
which  comes  after. 

In  one  sense  the  lofty  Messianic  ideas  of  "  the  day 
of  the  Eternal's  coming,"  "  the  consolation  of  Is- 
rael," "  the  restitution  of  all  things,"  are  even  more 
important  than  the  solid  but  humbler  idea,  Right- 
eousness tendeth  to  life !  out  of  which  they  arose ;  in 
another  sense  they  are  much  less  important.  They 
are  more  important,  because  they  are  the  develop- 
ment of  this  idea  and  prove  its  strength.  It  might 
have  been  crushed  and  baffled  by  the  falsification 
events  seemed  to  delight  in  giving  it ;  that  instead  of 
being  crushed  and  baffled,  it  took  this  magnificent 
flight,  shows  its  innate  power.  And  they  also  in  a 
wonderful  manner  attract  emotion  to  the  ideas  of 
conduct  and  morality,  attract  it  to  them  and  combine 
it  with  them.  On  the  other  hand,  the  idea  that 
righteousness  tendeth  to  life  has  a  firm,  experimental 
ground,  which  the  Messianic  ideas  have  not.  And 
the  day  comes  when  the  possession  of  such  a  ground 
is  invaluable. 

7 


98  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

That  the  spirit  of  man  should  entertain  hopes  and 
anticipations  beyond  what  it  actually  knows  and  can 
verify,  is  quite  natural.  Human  life  could  not  have 
the  scope,  and  depth,  and  progress  it  has,  were  this 
otherwise.  It  is  natural,  too,  to  make  these  hopes 
and  anticipations  give  in  their  turn  support  to  the 
simple  and  humble  experience  which  was  their  orig- 
inal ground.  Israel,  therefore,  who  originally  fol- 
lowed righteousness  because  he  felt  that  it  tended  to 
life,  might  naturally  come  at  last  to  follow  it  because 
it  would  enable  him  to  stand  before  the  Son  of  Man 
at  his  coming,  and  to  share  in  the  triumph  of  the 
saints. 

But  this  later  belief  has  not  the  same  character  as 
the  belief  which  it  is  thus  set  to  confirm.  It  is  a 
kind  of  fairy-tale,  which  a  man  tells  himself,  which 
no  one,  we  grant,  can  prove  impossible  to  turn  out 
true,  but  which  no  one,  also,  can  prove  certain  to 
turn  out  true.  It  is  exactly  what  is  expressed  by  the 
German  word  "  Aberglaube,"  extra-belief .  belief  be- 
yond what  is  certain  and  verifiable.  Our  word 
"  superstition  "  had  by  its  derivation  this  same  menu- 
ing,  but  it  has  come  to  be  used  in  a  merely  bad  sense, 
and  to  mean  a  childish  and  craven  religiosity.  With 
the  German  word  it  is  not  so;  therefore  Goethe  can 
say  with  propriety  and  truth:  ''Aberglaube  is  tin- 
poetry  of  life, — der  Aberglaube  /.s7  die  Poesie  dcs 
Lebens."  It  is  so;  extra-belief,  that  which  we  hope, 
augur,  imagine,  is  the  poetry  of  life,  and  has  tin- 
rights  of  poetry.  lint  it  is  not  science;  and  yet  it 
tends  always  to  imagine  itself  science,  to  substitute 


ABERGLAUBE  INVADING.  99 

itself  for  science,  to  make  itself  the  ground  of  the 
very  science  out  of  which  it  has  grown.  The  Mes- 
sianic ideas,  which  were  the  poetry  of  life  to  Israel 
in  the  age  when  Christ  came,  did  this;  and  it  is  the 
more  important  to  mark  that  they  did  it,  because 
similar  ideas  have  so  signally  done  the  same  thing 
in  popular  Christianity. 


CHAPTER  HI. 

RELIGION    NEW-GIVEN. 

JESUS  CHRIST  was  undoubtedly  the  very  last  sort 
of  Messiah  whom  the  Jews  expected.  Christian 
theologians  say  confidently  that  the  characters  of  hu- 
mility, obscureness,  and  depression  were  commonly 
attributed  to  the  Jewish  Messiah;  and  even  Bishop 
Butler,  in  general  the  most  severely  exact  of  writers, 
gives  countenance  to  this  error.  What  is  true  is,  that 
we  find  these  characters  attributed  to  some  one  by  the 
prophets;  that  we  attribute  them  to  Christ;  that 
Christ  is  for  us  the  Messiah,  and  that  Christ  they 
suit.  But  for  the  prophets  themselves,  and  for  the 
Jews  who  heard  and  read  them,  these  characters  of 
lowliness  and  depression  belonged  to  God's  chastened 
servant,  the  idealized  Israel.  When  Israel  had  been 
purged  and  renewed  by  these,  the  Messiah  was  to 
appear ;  but  with  glory  and  power  for  his  attributes, 
not  humility  and  weakness.  It  is  impossible  to  re- 
sist acknowledging  this,  if  we  read  the  Bible  to  find 
from  it  what  those  who  wrote  it  really  intended  to 
think  and  say,  and  not  to  put  in  it  what  we  wish 
them  to  have  thought  and  said.  To  find  in  Jesus  the 
genuine  Jewish  Messiah,  tlir  Mi-siah  nf  Daniel,  one 
like  the  Son  of  Man  coming  with  the  clouds  of  heaven 

100 


RELIGION  NEW-GIVEN.  101 

and  having  universal  dominion  given  him,  must  cer- 
tainly, to  a  Jew,  have  been  extremely  difficult. 

Nevertheless,  there  is  undoubtedly  in  the  Old  Tes- 
tament the  germ  of  Christianity.  In  developing  this 
germ  lay  the  future  of  righteousness  itself,  of  Israel's 
primary  and  immortal  concern ;  and  the  incompara' 
ble  greatness  of  the  religion  founded  by  Christ  cornea 
from  his  having  developed  it.  He  is  not  the  Mes- 
siah to  whom  the  hopes  of  his  nation  pointed  ;  and  yet 
Christendom  with  perfect  justice  has  made  him  the 
Messiah,  because  he  alone  took,  when  his  nation  was 
on  another  and  a  false  tack,  a  way  obscurely  indi* 
cated  in  the  Old  Testament,  and  the  one  possible  and 
successful  way,  for  the  accomplishment  of  the  Mes- 
siah's function : — "  to  bring  in  everlasting  righteous- 
ness." Let  us  see  how  this  was. 

Religion  in  the  Old  Testament  is  a  matter  of  na- 
tional and  social  conduct  mainly.  First,  it  consists 
in  devotion  to  Israel's  God,  the  Eternal  who  loveth 
righteousness,  and  of  separation  from  other  nations 
whose  concern  for  righteousness  was  less  fervent,  of 
abhorrence  of  their  idolatries,  which  were  sure  to 
bewilder  and  diminish  this  fervent  concern.  Sec- 
ondly, it  consists  in  doing  justice,  hating  all  wrong, 
robbery,  and  oppression,  abstaining  from  insolence, 
lying,  and  slandering.  The  Jews'  polity,  their  the- 
ocracy, was  of  such  immense  importance,  because  re- 
ligion, when  conceived  as  having  its  existence  in  these 
national  and  social  duties  mainly,  requires  a  polity 
to  put  itself  forth  in ;  and  the  Jews'  polity  was 
adapted  to  such  a  religion.  But  this  religion,  as  it 


102  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

<le\  eloped  itself,  was  by  no  means  entirely  worthy  of 
the  intuition  out  of  which  it  had  grown.  We  havo 
soon  how,  in  its  intuition  of  God — of  that  not  our- 
selves of  which  all  mankind  form  some  conception  or 
other — as  Ihc  Eternal  that  make*  for  righteousness, 
the  Hebrew  race  found  the  revelation  needed  to 
breathe  emotion  into  the  laws  of  morality,  and  to 
make  morality  religion.  This  revelation  is  the  cap- 
ital fact  of  the  Old  Testament,  and  the  source  of  its 
grandeur  and  power.  But  it  is  evident  that  this  reve- 
lation lost,  as  time  went  on,  its  nearness  and  clear- 
ness ;  and  that  for  the  mass  of  the  Hebrews  their  God 
came  to  be  a  mere  magnified  and  non-natural  man, 
like  the  God  of  our  popular  religion  now,  who  has 
commanded  certain  courses  of  conduct  and  attached 
certain  sanctions  to  them. 

And  though  prophets  and  righteous  men,  among 
the  Hebrews,  might  preserve  always  the  immediate 
and  truer  apprehension  of  their  God  as  the  Eternal 
who  makes  for  righteousness,  they  in  vain  tried  to 
communicate  this  apprehension  to  the  mass  of  their 
countrymen.  They  had,  indeed,  a  special  difficulty 
to  contend  with  in  communicating  it;  and  the  ditti- 
culty  was  this.  Those  courses  of  conduct,  which 
Israel's  intuition  of  the  Eternal  had  originally 
touched  with  emotion  and  made  religion,  lay  chiefly, 
we  have  seen,  in  the  line  of  national  and  social  duties. 
lly  reason  of  the  stage  of  their  own  growth  and  the 
world's,  tit  which  this  revelation  found  the  Hebrews, 
the  thing  could  not  well  be  otherwise.  And  national 
and  social  duties  are  peculiarly  capable  of  a  median- 


RELIGION  NEW-GIVEN.  103 

ical,  exterior  performance,  in  which  the  heart  has  no 
share.  One  may  observe  rites  and  ceremonies,  hate 
idolatry,  abstain  from  murder  and  theft  and  false  wit- 
nesses, and  yet  have  one's  inward  thoughts  bad,  cal- 
lous, and  disordered.  Then  even  the  admitted  duties 
themselves  come  to  be  ill-discharged  or  set  at  naught, 
because  the  emotion  which  was  the  only  certain  se- 
curity for  their  good  discharge  is  wanting.  The  very 
power  of  religion,  as  we  have  seen,  lies  in  its  bringing 
emotion  to  bear  on  our  rules  of  conduct,  and  thus 
making  us  care  for  them  so  much,  consider  them  so 
deeply  and  reverentially,  that  we  surmount  the  great 
practical  difficulty  of  acting  in  obedience  to  them, 
and  follow  them  heartily  and  easily.  Therefore  the 
Israelites,  when  they  lost  their  primary  intuition  and 
the  deep  feeling  which  went  with  it,  were  perpetually 
idolatrous,  slack  or  niggardly  in  the  service  of  Je- 
hovah, violators  of  judgment  and  justice. 

The  prophets  perpetually  reminded  their  nation  of 
the  superiority  of  judgment  and  justice  to  any  ex- 
terior ceremony  like  sacrifice.  But  judgment  and 
justice  themselves,  as  Israel  in  general  conceived 
them,  have  something  exterior  in  them;  now,  what 
was  wanted  was  move  imvardness,more  feeling.  This 
was  given  by  adding  -mercy  and  humbleness  to  judg- 
ment and  justice.  !Mercy  and  humbleness  are  some- 
thing inward,  they  are  affections  of  the  heart.  And 
even  in  the  Proverbs  these  appear:  "The  merciful 
man  doeth  good  to  his  own  soul ;  "  "  lie  that  hath 
mercy  on  the  poor,  happy  is  he;  "  "  Honor  shall  up- 
hold the  humble  in  spirit;"  "When  pride  cometh, 


104  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

shame  cometh,  but  with  the  lowly  is  wisdom."  So 
that  Micah  asked  his  nation :  "  What  doth  the  Eter- 
nal require  of  thee,  but  to  do  justly,  and  to  love 
mercy,  and  to  walk  humbly  with  thy  God  ?  "  — adding 
mercy  and  humility  to  the  old  judgment  and  justice. 
But  a  further  development  is  given  to  humbleness, 
when  the  second  Isaiah  adds  contrition  to  it :  "I  " 
(the  Eternal)  "  dwell  with  him  that  is  of  a  contrite 
and  humble  spirit ;  "  or  when  the  Psalmist  says, 
"  The  sacrifices  of  God  are  a  broken  spirit;  a  broken 
and  a  contrite  heart,  O  God,  thou  wilt  not  despise !  " 
This  is  personal  religion;  religion  consisting  in  tho 
inward  feeling  and  disposition  of  the  individual  him- 
self, rather  than  in  the  performance  of  outward  acts 
toward  religion  or  society.  It  is  the  essence  of  Chris- 
tianity, it  is  what  the  Jews  needed,  it  is  the  line  in 
which  their  religion  was  ripe  for  development;  and 
it  appears  in  the  Old  Testament.  Still,  in  the  Old 
Testament  it  by  no  means  comes  out  fully.  The 
leaning,  there,  is  to  make  religion  social  rather  than 
personal,  an  affair  of  duties  rather  than  of  disposi- 
tions. Soon  after  the  very  words  we  have  just 
quoted  from  him,  the  second  Isaiah  adds :  "  If  thou 
take  away  from  the  midst  of  thee  the  yoke,  the  put- 
ting forth  of  the  finger  and  speaking  vanity,  and  if 
thou  draw  out  thy  soul  to  the  hungry,  and  satisfy  the 
afflicted  soul,  then  shall  thy  light  rise  in  obscurity  and 
thy  darkness  be  as  the  noon-day,  and  the  Eternal  shall 
guide  thee  continually  and  make  fat  thy  bones." 
This  stands,  or  at  least  appears  to  stand,  as  a  full  de- 


RELIGION  NEW-GIVEN.  105 

scription  of  righteousness;  and  as  such,  it  is  unsat- 
isfying. 


2. 


What  was  wanted,  then,  was  a  fuller  description 
of  righteousness.  Now,  it  is  clear  that  righteous- 
ness, the  central  object  of  Israel's  concern,  was  the 
central  object  of  Christ's  concern  also.  Of  the  de- 
velopment and  cardinal  points  of  his  teaching  we 
shall  have  to  speak  more  at  length  by  and  by ;  all  we 
have  to  do  here  is  to  pass  them  in  a  rapid  preliminary 
review.  Israel  had  said :  "  To  him  that  ordereth 
his  conversation  right  shall  be  shown  the  salvation  of 
God."  And  Christ  said :  "  Except  your  righteous- 
ness exceed  the  righteousness  of  the  Scribes  and  Phar- 
isees,"— that  is,  of  the  very  people  who  then  passed 
for  caring  most  about  righteousness  and  practising 
it  most  rigidly, — "  ye  shall  in  no  wise  enter  into  the 
kingdom  of  heaven."  But  righteousness  had  by 
Christ's  time  lost,  in  great  measure,  the  mighty  im- 
pulse which  emotion  gives ;  and  in  losing  this,  had 
lost  also  the  mighty  sanction  which  happiness  gives. 
"  The  whole  head  was  sick  and  the  whole  heart 
faint ;  "  the  glad  and  immediate  sense  of  being  in  the 
right  way,  in  the  way  of  peace,  was  gone ;  the  sense  of 
being  wrong  and  astray,  of  sin,  and  of  helplessness 
under  sin,  was  oppressive.  The  thing  was,  by  giv- 
ing a  fuller  idea  of  righteousness,  to  reapply  emotion 
to  it,  and  by  thus  reapplying  emotion,  to  disperse  the 
feeling  of  being  amiss  and  helpless,  to  give  the  sense 


106  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

of  being  right  and  effective;  to  restore,  in  short,  to 
righteousness  the  sanction  of  happiness. 

But  this  could  only  be  done  by  attending  to  that 
inward  world  of  feelings  and  dispositions  which 
Judaism  had  too  much  neglected.  The  first  need, 
therefore,  for  Israel  at  that  time,  was  to  make  re- 
ligion cease  to  be  mainly  a  national  and  social  matter, 
and  become  mainly  a  personal  matter.  "  Thou  blind 
Pharisee,  cleanse  first  the  inside  of  the  cup,  that  the 
outside  may  be  clean  also !  " — this  was  the  very 
ground-principle  in  Christ's  teaching.  Instead  of 
attending  so  much  to  your  outward  acts,  attend,  he 
said,  first  of  all  to  your  inward  thoughts,  to  the  state 
of  your  heart  and  feelings.  This  doctrine  has  per- 
haps been  overstrained  and  misapplied  by  certain 
people  since ;  but  it  was  the  lesson  which  at  that  time 
was  above  all  needed.  It  is  a  great  progress  beyond 
even  that  advanced  maxim  of  pious  Jews:  "  To  do 
justice  and  judgment  is  more  acceptable  than  sacri- 
fice." For  to  do  justice  and  judgment  is  still,  as  wo 
have  remarked,  something  external,  and  may  leave 
the  feelings  untouched,  uncleared,  and  dead;  what 
was  wanted  was  to  plough  up,  clear,  and  quicken  the 
feelings  themselves.  And  tin-  is  what  Christ  did. 

"  .My  son,  give  me  thy  heart!  "  says  the  teacher  of 
righteousness  in  the  golden  age  of  Israel.  And  when 
Israel  had  the  Eternal  revealed  to  him,  and  founded 
our  religion,  he  gave  his  heart.  But  the  time  came 
when  this  direct  vision  ceased,  and  Israel's  religion 
was  a  mere  affair  of  tradition,  and  of  doctrines  and 
rules  received  from  without.  Then  it  might  be  truly 


RELIGION  NEW-GIVEN.  107 

said  of  this  professed  servant  of  the  Eternal:  "  This 
people  honor  me  with  their  lips,  but  have  removed 
their  heart  far  from  me,  and  their  fear  toward  me 
is  taught  by  the  precept  of  men."  With  little  or  no 
power  of  distinguishing  between  what  was  rule  of 
ceremonial  and  what  was  rule  of  conduct,  they  fol- 
lowed the  prescriptions  of  their  religion  with  a  servile 
and  sullen  mind,  "  precept  upon  precept,  line  upon 
line,  here  a  little  and  there  a  little,"  and  no  end  to  it 
all.  What  a  change  since  the  days  when  it  was  joy 
to  the  just  to  do  judgment !  The  prophets  saw  clearly 
enough  the  evil,  nay,  they  even  could  point  to  the 
springs  which  must  be  touched  in  order  to  work  a 
cure ;  but  they  could  not  press  these  springs  steadily 
enough  or  skilfully  enough  to  work  the  cure  them- 
selves. 

Christ's  new  and  different  way  of  putting  things 
was  the  secret  of  his  succeeding  where  the  prophets 
could  not.  And  this  new  way  he  had  of  putting 
things  is  what  is  indicated  by  the  expression  epici- 
kcia,  best  rendered,  as  we  have  elsewhere  said,*  by 
those  two  words, — "  sweet  reasonableness."  For  that 
which  is  cpicikcs  is  that  which  has  an  air  of  truth  and 
likelihood  ;  and  that  which  has  an  air  of  truth  and 
likelihood  is  prepossessing.  Xow,  never  were  utter- 
ances concerning  conduct  and  righteousness — Israel's 
master-concern,  and  the  master-topic  of  the  Xew  Tes- 
tament as  well  as  of  the  Old — which  so  carried  with 
them  an  air  of  consummate  truth  and  likelihood  as 
Christ's  did ;  and  never,  therefore,  were  any  utter- 
*  St.  Paul  and  Protestantism,  p.  xix. 


108  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

ances  so  irresistibly  prepossessing.  He  put  things 
in  such  a  way  that  his  hearer  was  led  to  take  each 
rule  or  fact  of  conduct  by  its  inward  side,  its  effect 
on  the  heart  and  character;  then  the  reason  of  the 
thing,  the  meaning  of  what  had  been  mere  matter 
of  blind  rule,  flashed  upon  him.  He  could  distin- 
guish between  what  was  only  ceremony,  and  what 
was  conduct;  and  the  hardest  rule  of  conduct  came 
to  appear  to  him  infinitely  reasonable  and  natural, 
and  therefore  infinitely  prepossessing.  To  find  ///*• 
own  soul,  his  true  and  permanent  self,  became  set  up 
in  man's  view  as  his  chief  concern,  as  the  secret  of 
happiness;  and  so  it  really  is.  "How  is  a  man  ad- 
vantaged if  he  gain  the  whole  world  and  suffer  the 
loss  of  himself?  "  was  the  searching  question  which 
Jesus  made  men  ask  themselves.  A  return  upon 
themselves,  and  a  consequent  intuition  of  the  truth 
and  reason  of  the  thing  in  question,  gave  men  for 
right  action  the  clearness,  spirit,  energy,  happiness, 
they  had  lost. 

This  power  of  returning  upon  themselves,  and  see- 
ing by  a  flash  the  truth  and  reason  of  things,  his 
disciples  learnt  of  Christ.  They  learnt,  too,  from 
observing  him  and  his  example,  much  which,  with- 
out, perhaps,  any  conscious  process  of  being  appre- 
hended in  its  reason,  was  discerned  instinctively  to 
be  true  and  life-giving  as  soon  as  it  was  recommended 
in  Christ's  words  and  illustrated  by  Christ's  exam- 
ple. Two  lessons  in  particular  they  learnt  in  this 
way,  and  added  them  to  the  great  lesson  of  self -ox 
amination,  and  an  appeal  to  the  inner  num.  with 


RELIGION  NEW-GIVEN.  109 

which  they  started.  "  Whoever  will  come  after  me, 
let  him  deny  himself  and  take  up  his  cross  daily  and 
follow  me !  "  was  one  of  the  two ;  "  Learn  of  me  that 
I  am  mild  and  lowly  in  heart,  and  ye  shall  find  rest 
unto  your  souls !  "  was  the  other.  Christ  made  his 
followers  first  look  within  and  examine  themselves; 
he  made  them  feel  that  they  had  a  best  and  real  self 
as  opposed  to  their  ordinary  and  apparent  one,  and 
that  their  happiness  depended  on  saving  this  best 
self  from  being  overborne.  And  then,  by  recom- 
mending, and  still  more  by  himself  exemplifying  in 
his  own  practice,  by  the  exhibition  in  himself  with 
the  most  prepossessing  pureness,  clearness,  and 
beauty,  of  the  two  qualities  by  which  our  ordinary 
self  is  indeed  most  essentially  counteracted,  sdf- 
renouncement  and  mildness,  he  made  his  followers 
feel  that  in  these  qualities  lay  the  secret  of  their 
best  self;  that  to  attain  them  was  in  the  highest  de- 
gree requisite  and  natural,  and  that  a  man's  whole 
happiness  depended  upon  it. 

Self-examination,  self -renouncement,  and  mildness 
were,  therefore,  the  great  means  by  which  Christ  re- 
newed righteousness  and  religion.  All  these  means 
are  indicated  in  the  Old  Testament :  "  God  requireth 
truth  in  the  inward  parts ;  Not  doing  thine  own  ways, 
nor  finding  thine  own  pleasure ;  Before  honor  is  hu- 
mility." But  how  far  more  strongly  are  they  forced 
upon  the  attention  in  the  Xew  Testament,  and  set 
up  clearly  as  the  central  mark  for  our  endeavors! 
"  Thou  blind  Pharisee,  cleanse  first  the  inside  of  the 
cup  that  the  outside  may  be  clean  also!  Whoever 


HO  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

will  come  after  me,  let  him  renounce  himself  and 
take  up  his  cross  daily  and  follow  me !  Learn  of  me 
that  I  am  mild  and  lowly  in  heart,  and  ye  shall  find 
rest  unto  your  souls !  "  So  that,  although  personal 
religion  is  clearly  present  in  the  Old  Testament, 
nevertheless  these  injunctions  of  the  ISTew  Testament 
effect  so  much  more  for  the  extrication  and  establish- 
ment of  personal  religion  than  the  general  exhorta- 
tions in  the  Old  to  "offer  the  sacrifice  of  righteous- 
ness," to  "  do  judgment,"  that,  comparatively  with 
the  Old,  the  New  Testament  may  be  said  to  have 
really  founded  inward  and  personal  religion.  While 
the  Old  Testament  says,  "Attend  to  conduct!  "  the 
Xew  Testament  says,  "  Attend  to  the  feelings  and  dis- 
positions whence  conduct  proceeds !  "  And  as  at- 
tending to  conduct  had  very  much  degenerated  into 
deaduess  and  formality,  attending  to  the  spriin/x  of 
conduct  was  a  revelation,  a  revival  of  intuitive  ;m<l 
fresh  perceptions,  a  touching  of  morals  with  emotion, 
a  discovering  of  religion,  similar  to  that  which  had 
been  effected  when  Israel,  struck  with  the  abiding 
power,  not  of  man's  causing,  which  makes  for  right- 
eoiisrie-s.  and  filled  with  joy  and  awe  by  it,  hail,  in 
the  old  days,  named  God  the  Eternal.  ]\Ian  came 
under  a  new  dispensation,  and  made  with  God  a  sec- 
ond covenant. 

3. 

To  rivet  the  attention  on  th?  indications  of  per- 
sonal religion  furnished  by  the  Old  Testament;  to 


RELIGION  NEW-GIVEN.  HI 

take  the  humble,  inward,  and  suffering  "  servant  of 
God  "  of  the  prophets,  and  to  elevate  this  as  the  Mes- 
siah, the  seed  of  Abraham  and  David,  in  whom  all 
nations  should  be  blessed,  whose  throne  should  be  as 
the  days  of  heaven,  who  should  redeem  his  people  and 
restore  the  kingdom  to  Israel, — was  a  work  of  the 
highest  originality.  It  cannot,  as  we  have  seen,  be 
said  that,  by  the  suffering  Servant  of  God  and  by 
the  triumphant  Messiah,  the  prophets  themselves 
meant  one  and  the  same  person.  But  language  of 
hope  and  aspiration,  such  as  theirs,  is  in  its  very 
nature  malleable.  Criticism  may  and  must  deter- 
mine what  the  original  speakers  seem  to  have  directly 
meant;  but  the  very  nature  of  their  language  justi- 
fies any  powerful  and  fruitful  application  of  it,  and 
every  such  application  may  be  said,  in  the  words  of 
popular  religion,  to  have  been  lodged  there  from  the 
first  by  the  spirit  of  God.  Certainly  it  was  a  some- 
what violent  exegetical  proceeding,  to  fuse  together 
into  one  personage  Daniel's  Son  of  Man  coming  with 
the  clouds  of  Heaven,  the  first  Isaiah's  "  Branch  out 
of  the  root  of  Jesse,"  who  should  smite  the  earth  with 
the  rod  of  his  mouth  and  reign  in  glory,  peace,  and 
righteousness,,  and  the  second  Isaiah's  meek  and  af- 
flicted Servant  of  God,  who  was  charged  with  the 
precious  message  of  a  golden  future; — to  fuse  to- 
gether in  one  these  three  by  no  means  identical  per- 
sonages, to  add  to  them  the  sacrificial  lamb  of  the 
passover  and  of  the  temple-service  which  was  con- 
stantly before  a  Jew's  eyes,  to  add,  besides,  the 
Prophet  like  to  himself  whom  Moses  promised  to  the 


112  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

children  of  Israel,  to  add,  further,  the  Holy  One  of 
Israel  the  Redeemer,  who  for  the  prophets  was  the 
Eternal  himself;  and  to  say,  that  the  combination 
thence  resulting  was  the  Messiah  or  Christ  whom  all 
the  prophets  meant  and  predicted,  and  that  Jesus  was 
this  Messiah.  To  us,  who  have  been  fashioned  by  a 
theology  whose  set  purpose  is  to  efface  all  the  diffi- 
culties in  such  a  combination,  and  to  make  it  received 
easily  and  unhesitatingly,  it  may  appear  natural ;  in 
itself,  and  with  the  elements  of  which  it  is  composed 
viewed  singly  and  impartially,  it  cannot  but  be  pro- 
nounced violent. 

But  the  elements  in  question  have  their  chief  use 
and  value,  we  repeat,  not  as  objects  of  criticism ; 
they  belong  of  right  to  whoever  can  best  possess  him- 
self of  them  for  practice  and  edification.  Of  the 
Messiah  coming  in  the  clouds,  of  the  Branch  of  Jesse 
smiting  the  earth  with  the  rod  of  his  mouth,  slaying 
the  wicked  with  his  breath,  and  re-establishing  in  un- 
exampled splendor  David's  kingdom,  nothing  could 
be  made.  With  such  a  Messiah  filling  men's  thoughts 
and  hopes,  the  real  defects  of  Israel  still  remained, 
because  these  chiefly  proceeded  from  Israel's  making 
his  religion  too  much  a  national  and  social  affair, 
too  little  a  personal  affair.  But  a  Messiah  who  did 
not  strive  nor  cry,  who  was  oppressed  and  afflicted 
without  opening  his  mouth,  who  worked  obscurely 
and  patiently,  yet  failed  not  nor  was  discouraged  un- 
til his  doctrine  made  its  way  and  transformed  the 
world, — this  was  the  Messiah  whom  Israel  needed, 
and  in  whom  the  lost  greatness  <>f  Isniel  could  be 


RELIGION  NEW-GIVEN.  H3 

restored  and  culminate.  For  the  true  greatness  of 
Israel  was  righteousness;  and  only  by  an  inward 
personal  religion  could  the  sense  revive  of  what  right- 
eousness really  was, — revive  in  Israel  and  bear  fruit 
for  the  world. 

Instead,  then,  of  "  the  Root  of  David  who  should 
set  up  an  ensign  for  the  nations  and  assemble  the  out- 
casts of  Israel,"  Christ  took  from  prophecy  and  made 
pre-eminent  "  the  Servant  whom  man  despiseth  and 
the  people  abhorreth,"  but  "  who  bringeth  good  tid- 
ings, who  publisheth  peace,  publisheth  salvation." 
And  instead  of  saying  like  the  prophets,  "  This  peo- 
ple must  mend,  this  nation  must  do  so  and  so,  Israel 
must  follow  such  and  such  ways,"  Christ  took  the  in- 
dividual Israelite  by  himself  apart,  made  him  listen 
for  the  voice  of  his  conscience,  and  said  to  him  in  ef- 
fect, "  If  every  one  would  mend  one,  we  should  have 
a  new  world."  So  vital  for  the  Jews  was  this  change 
of  character  in  their  religion,  that  the  Old  Testament 
abounds,  as  we  have  said,  in  points  and  approxima- 
tions to  it ;  and  most  truly  might  Christ  say  to  his  fol- 
lowers, that  many  prophets  and  kings  had  desired, 
though  unavailingly,  to  see  the  things  which  his  dis- 
ciples saw  and  heard. 

The  desire  felt  by  pious  Israelites  for  some  new  as- 
pect of  religion  such  as  Christ  presented,  is,  undoubt- 
edly, the  best  proof  of  its  timeliness  and  salutari- 
ness.  Perhaps  New  Testament  witnesses  to  the 
workings  of  this  desire  may  be  received  with  sus- 
picion, as  having  arisen  after  the  event  and  when  the 
new  ideal  of  Christ  had  become  established.  Other- 
8 


114  LITERATURE  AND  DOQMA. 

wise,  John  the  Baptist's  characterization  of  the  Mes- 
siah as  "  the  Lamb  of  God  that  taketh  away  the  sin? 
of  the  world,"  and  the  bold  Messianic  turn  given  in 
the  twelfth  chapter  of  St.  Matthew  to  the  prophecy 
there  quoted  from  the  forty-second  chapter  of  Isaiah., 
would  be  evidence  of  the  highest  importance.  "  A 
bruised  reed  breaketh  ho  not,"  says  Tsaiah  of  the 
meek  servant  and  messenger  of  God,  "  and  a  glimmer- 
ing wick  quencheth  he  not;  ho  declareth  judgment 
with  truth;  far  lands  wait  for  his  doctrine."  "  A 
bruised  reed  shall  he  not  break,"  runs  the  passage  in 
St.  Matthew,  "  and  smoking  flax  shall  he  not  quench. 
until  he  send  forth  judgment  unto  victory;  hi  his 
name  shall  the  Gentiles  trust."  The  words,  "until 
he  send  forth  judgment  unto  victory,"  words  giving  a 
clear  Messianic  stamp  to  the  personage  described,  are 
neither  in  the  original  Hebrew  nor  in  the  Greek  of 
the  Septuagint; — where  did  the  Gospel-writer  find 
them?  If,  as  is  possible,  they  were  in  some  version 
of  Isaiah  then  extant,  they  prove  in  a  striking  Avay 
the  existence  and  strength  of  the  aspiration  which 
Christ  satisfied  by  transforming  the  old  popular  ideal 
of  the  Messiah.  But  there  is  in  any  case  proof  of 
the  existence  of  such  an  aspiration,  since  a  Jewish 
commentator,  contemporary,  probably,  with  the 
Christian  era  but  not  himself  a  Christian,  assigns 
to  the  prophecy  a  Messianic  intention.  And,  indeed, 
the  rendering  of  the  final  words,  "  in  his  name  shall 
the  Gentiles  trust,"  which  in  in  the  Greek  of  the  Sep 
tuagint  as  well  as  in  that  of  St.  Matthew,  shows,  per- 


RELIGION  NEW-GIVEN.  115 

haps,  a  similar  leaning  in  the  Jews  of  Alexandria 
some  two  centuries  before  Christ. 

Signs  there  are,  then,  without  doubt,  of  others  try- 
ing to  identify  the  Messiah  of  popular  hope — the 
triumphant  Root  of  David,  the  mystic  Son  of  Man — 
with  an  ideal  of  meekness,  inwardness,  patience,  and 
self-denial ;  and  well  might  reformers  try  to  effect 
this  identification,  for  the  true  line  of  Israel's  prog- 
ress lay  through  it !  But  not  he  who  tries  makes  an 
epoch,  but  he  who  effects;  and  the  identification 
which  was  needed  Jesus  effected.  Henceforth  the 
true  Israelite  was,  undoubtedly,  he  who  allied  him- 
self with  this  identification ;  who  perceived  its  incom- 
parable fruitfulness,  its  continuance  of  the  real  tradi- 
tion of  Israel,  its  correspondence  with  the  ruling  idea 
of  the  Hebrew  spirit:  "Through  righteousness  to 
happiness !  "  or,  in  Bible  words,  "  To  him  that  or- 
dereth  his  conversation  right  shall  be  shown  the  sal- 
vation of  God."  That  the  Jewish  nation  at  large, 
and  its  rulers,  refused  to  accept  the  identification, 
shows  simply  that  want  of  power  to  penetrate  through 
wraps  and  appearances  to  the  essence  of  things,  which 
the  majority  of  mankind  always  display.  The  na- 
tional and  social  character  of  their  theocracy  was 
everything  to  the  Jews,  and  they  could  see  no  bless- 
ings in  a  revolution  which  annulled  it. 

It  has  often  been  remarked,  that  the  Puritans  are 
like  the  Jews  of  the  Old  Testament ;  and  Mr.  Froude 
thinks  he  defends  the  Puritans  by  saying  that  they, 
like  the  Jews  of  the  Old  Testament,  had  their  hearts 
set  on  a  theocracy,  on  a  fashioning  of  politics  and 


LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

society  to  suit  the  government  of  God.  How  strange 
that  he  does  not  perceive  that  he  thus  passes,  and  with 
justice,  the  gravest  condemnation  on  the  Puritans  as 
followers  of  Christ!  At  the  Christian  era  the  time 
had  passed,  in  religion,  for  outward  constructions  of 
this  kind,  and  for  all  care  about  establishing  or  abol- 
ishing them.  The  time  had  come  for  inwardness  and 
self-reconstruction, — a  time  to  last  till  the  self-re- 
construction is  fully  achieved.  It  was  the  error  of 
the  Jews  that  they  did  not  perceive  this ;  and  the  error 
of  the  Jews  the  Puritans,  without  the  Jews'  excuse, 
faithfully  repeated.  And  the  blunder  of  both  had 
the  same  cause, — a  want  of  tact  to  perceive  what  is 
really  most  wanted  for  the  attainment  of  their  own 
professed  ideal,  the  reign  of  righteousness. 

When  Jesus  appeared,  his  disciples  were  those  who 
did  not  make  this  blunder.  They  were,  in  general, 
simple  souls,  without  pretensions  which  Christ's  nc\v 
religious  ideal  cut  short,  or  self-consequence  which  it 
mortified;  and  any  Israelite  who  was,  on  the  one 
hand,  not  warped  by  personal  pretensions  and  self- 
consequence,  and  on  the  other,  not  dull  of  feeling  and 
gross  of  life  like  the  common  multitude,  might  well 
be  open  to  the  spell  which,  after  all,  was  the  great 
confirmation  of  Christ's  religion,  as  it  was  tho  groat 
confirmation  of  the  original  religion  of  Israel, — the 
spell  of  its  happiness.  "  Be  glad,  O  yo  righteous. 
and  rejoice  in  the  Eternal,"  the  old  and  lost  preroiM 
tive  of  Israel,  Christianity  offered  to  make  again  a 
living  and  true  word  to  him. 


RELIGION  NEW-GIVEN.  H7 

4. 

For  we  have  already  remarked,  how  it  is  the  great 
achievement  of  the  Israel  of  the  Old  Testament,  hap- 
piness being  mankind's  confessed  end  and  aim,  to 
have  more  than  any  one  else  felt,  and  more  than  any 
one  else  succeeded  in  making  others  feel,  that  "  to 
righteousness  belongs  happiness."  Now,  it  will  be 
denied  by  no  one  that  Christ,  in  his  turn,  was  emi- 
nently characterized  by  professing  to  bring,  and  by 
being  felt  to  bring,  happiness.  All  the  words  that  be- 
long to  his  mission — gospel,  kingdom  of  God,  saviour, 
grace,  peace,  living  water,  bread  of  life — are  brimful 
of  promise  and  of  joy.  "  I  am  come,"  he  said, 
"  that  ye  might  have  life,  and  that  ye  might  have  it 
more  abundantly ;  "  "  Come  to  me,  and  ye  shall  find 
rest  unto  your  souls;  "  "  I  speak,  that  my  disciples 
may  have  my  joy  fulfilled  in  themselves."  That  the 
operation,  professed  and  actual,  of  this  "  son  of 
peace  "  was  to  replace  his  followers  in  "  the  way  of 
peace,"  no  one  can  question ;  the  only  matter  of  dis- 
pute can  be  how  he  replaced  them  there. 

Now,  that  we  may  see  this  more  clearly,  let  us  re- 
turn for  a  moment  to  what  we  said  of  conduct, — of 
conduct,  which  we  found  to  be  three  fourths,  at  least, 
of  human  life,  and  the  object  with  which  religion  is 
concerned.  We  said  of  conduct,  that  it  is  the  sim- 
plest thing  in  the  world  as  far  as  knowledge  is  con- 
cerned, but  the  hardest  thing  in  the  world  as  far  as 
doing  is  concerned.  We  added  that  going  right,  suc- 
ceeding, in  the  management  of  this  vast  concern,  gave 


118  LiiKRATUKE  AND  DOGMA. 

naturally  the  liveliest  possible  sense  of  satisfaction 
and  happiness ;  that  attending  to  it  was  naturally  the 
secret  of  success,  that  attachment  makes  us  attend, 
and  that  whatever,  therefore,  made  us  love  to  attend 
to  it  must  inspire  us  with  gratitude.  We  found  the 
central  point  of  the  religion  of  the  Old  Testament  in 
Israel's  keen  perception  of  a  power,  not  ourselves, 
which  makes  for  righteousness  and  disposes  us  to  at- 
tain to  it,  and  in  his  energy  of  grateful  self-surrender 
to  this  power.  Let  us  take,  to  guide  ourselves  in  the 
New  Testament,  the  help  of  the  clew  furnished  by  all 
this. 

First,  as  to  the  extreme  simplicity  of  the  matter 
concerned ;  a  matter  sophisticated,  overlaid,  and  hid- 
den in  a  thousand  ways.  The  artless,  unschooled  per- 
ception of  a  child  is,  Christ  says,  the  right  organ  for 
apprehending  it :  "  Whosoever  does  not  receive  the 
kingdom  of  God  as  a  little  child,  cannot  enter  there- 
in." And  yet  it  is  so  difficult  of  attainment  that  it 
seems  we  cannot  attain  it  of  ourselves :  "  No  man  can 
come  to  me  unless  it  be  given  him  of  the  Father." 
The  things  to  be  done  are  so  simple  and  necessary  that 
the  doctrine  about  them  proves  itself  as  soon  as  we  do 
them  :  "  Whoever  will  do  God's  will,  shall  know  of  the 
doctrine,  whether  it  be  of  God."  Only  it  is  indispen- 
sable to  do  them  ;  speculating  and  professing  arc  abso- 
lutely useless,  here,  without  doing:  "  Why  call  ye 
me.  Lord,  Lord,  and  do  not  the  things  that  I  say?" 
The  great  and  learned  people,  the  masters  in  Israel, 
have  their  authoritative  version  of  what  righteous- 
ness and  the  will  of  God  is,  of  what  the  ideal  for  the 


RELIGION  NEW-GIVEN.  H9 

Jewish  nation  is,  of  the  correct  way  to  interpret  the 
prophets.  But:  "Judge  not  according  to  the  ap- 
pearance, but  judge  righteous  judgment;  "  "  beware 
of  insincerity;  "  "  God  sees  the  heart;  what  comes 
from  within,  that  defiles  us."  The  new  covenant, 
the  New  Testament,  consists  in  the  rule  of  this  very 
inwardness,  in  a  state  of  things  when  God  "  puts  his 
law  in  the  inward  parts  and  writes  it  in  the  heart," 
in  conscience  being  made  the  test.  You  can  see, 
Jesus  says, — you  can  see  the  leading  religionists  of 
the  Jewish  nation,  with  the  current  notions  about 
righteousness,  God's  will,  and  the  meaning  of 
prophecy,  you  can  see  them  saying  and  not  doing,  full 
of  fierce  temper,  pride,  and  sensuality;  this  shows 
they  can  be  but  blind  guides  for  you.  The  saviour 
of  Israel  is  he  who  makes  Israel  use  his  conscience 
simply  and  sincerely,  who  makes  him  change  and 
sweeten  his  temper,  conquer  and  annul  his  sensuality. 
The  prophets  all  point  to  such  a  saviour,  and  he  is 
the  Messiah,  and  the  promised  happiness  to  Israel  is 
in  him  and  in  his  reign.  He  is,  in  the  exalted  lan- 
guage of  prophecy,  the  holy  one  of  God,  the  son  of 
God,  the  beloved  of  God,  the  anointed  of  God,  the  son 
of  man  in  an  eminent  and  unique  sense,  the  Messiah 
and  Christ ;  in  plainer  language,  he  is  "  a  man  who 
tells  you  the  truth  which  he  has  heard  of  God ;  "  who 
came  not  of  himself  and  speaks  not  of  himself,  but 
who  "  came  forth  from  God," — from  the  original  God 
of  Israel's  worship,  the  God  of  righteousness,  and  of 
hapniness  joined  to  righteousness,  "and  is  come  to 
you."  Israel  is  perpetually  talking  of  God  and  call- 


120  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

ing  him  his  Father,  and  "  every  one,"  says  Christ, 
"  who  hears  the  Father  comes  to  me,  for  I  know  Him, 
and  know  His  will,  and  utter  His  word."  God's  will 
and  word,  in  the  Old  Testament,  was  righteousness; 
in  the  New  Testament,  it  is  righteousness  explained 
to  have  its  essence  in  inwardness,  mildness,  and  self- 
renouncement.  This  is,  in  substance,  the  word  of 
Christ,  which  he  who  hears  "  shall  never  see  death;  " 
of  which  he  who  follows  it  "  shall  know  by  experience 
whether  it  be  of  God." 

But  as  the  Israel  of  the  Old  Testament  did  not  say 
or  feel  that  he  followed  righteousness  by  his  own 
power,  or  out  of  self-interest  and  self-love,  but  said 
and  felt  that  he  followed  it  in  thankful  self-surrender 
to  "  the  Eternal  who  loveth  righteousness,"  and  that 
"  the  Eternal  ordereth  a  good  man's  going,  and  ?»'//,•- 
etli  his  way  acceptable  to  Himself," — so,  in  the  resto- 
ration effected  by  Jesus,  the  motive  which  is  of  force 
is  not  the  moral  motive  that  inwardness,  mildness, 
and  self-renouncement  make  for  man's  happiness,  but 
a  far  stronger  motive,  full  of  ardent  affection  and 
gratitude,  and  which,  though  it  really  has  its  ground 
and  confirmation  in  the  fact  that  inwardness,  mild- 
ness, and  self-renouncement  do  make  for  man's  hajv- 
pincss,  yet  keeps  no  consciousness  of  this  as  its 
ground.  For  it  finds  a  far  surer  ground  in  personal 
devotion  to  Christ,  who  brought  the  doctrine  to  his 
disciples  and  made  a  passage  for  it  into  their  hearts; 
in  believing  that  Christ  is  come  from  God,  followinir 
Christ,  loving  Christ.  And,  in  the  happiness  which 


RELIGION  NEW-GIVEN.  121 

thus  believing  in  him,  following  him,  and  loving  him 
gives,  it  finds  the  mightiest  of  sanctions. 


5. 


And  thus  was  the  great  doctrine  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, "  To  righteousness  belongs  happiness !  "  made 
a  true  and  potent  word  again.  Christ  was  the  Mes- 
siah to  restore  the  all  things  of  Israel, — righteous- 
ness, and  happiness  with  righteousness ;  to  bring  light 
and  recovery  after  long  days  of  darkness  and  ruin, 
and  to  make  good  the  belief  written  on  Israel's  heart, 
"  The  righteous  is  an  everlasting  foundation !  "  But 
we  have  seen  how  in  the  hopes  of  the  nation  and  in 
the  promises  of  prophecy  this  true  and  vital  belief 
of  Israel  was  mixed  with  a  quantity  of  what  we  have 
called  Aberglaube  or  extra-belief,  adding  all  manner 
of  shape  and  circumstance  to  the  original  thought. 
The  kingdom  of  David  and  Solomon  was  to  be  re- 
stored on  a  grander  scale,  the  enemies  of  Israel  were 
to  lick  the  dust,  kings  were  to  bring  gifts ;  there  was 
to  be  the  Son  of  Man  coming  in  the  clouds,  judgment 
given  to  the  saints  of  the  Most  High,  and  an  eternal 
reign  of  the  saints  afterwards. 

Now,  most  of  this  has  a  poetical  value,  some  of 
it  has  a  moral  value.  All  of  it  is,  in  truth,  a  testi- 
mony to  the  strength  of  Israel's  idea  of  righteousness. 
For  the  order  of  its  growth  is,  as  we  have  seen,  this, 
ce  To  righteousness  belongs  happiness! — this  sure  rule 
is  often  broken  in  the  state  of  things  which  now  is; 
there  must,  therefore,  be  in  store  for  us,  in  the  future, 


1-22  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

a  state  of  things  where  it  will  hold  good."  But  none 
of  it  has  a  scientific  value,  a  certitude  arising  from 
proof  and  experience.  And,  indeed,  it  cannot  have 
this,  for  it  professes  to  be  an  anticipation  of  a  state 
of  things  not  yet  actually  experienced. 

But  human  nature  is  such,  that  the  mind  easily 
dwells  on  an  anticipation  of  this  kind  until  wo  oomo 
to  forget  the  order  in  which  it  arose,  place  it  first 
when  it  is  by  rights  second,  and  make  it  support  that 
by  which  it  is  in  truth  supported.  And  so  there 
came  to  be  many  Israelites — most  likely  they  were 
the  great  majority  of  their  nation — who  supposed 
that  righteousness  was  to  be  followed,  not  out  of 
thankful  self -surrender  to  "  the  Eternal  who  loveth 
righteousness,"  but  because  the  Ancient  of  Days  was 
coming  before  long,  and  judgment  was  to  be  given 
to  the  saints  and  they  were  to  possess  the  kingdom, 
and  from  the  kingdom  those  who  did  not  follow  right- 
eousness would  be  excluded.  From  this  way  of  con- 
ceiving religion  came  naturally  the  religious  condi- 
tion of  the  Jews  as  Christ  at  his  coming  found  it; 
and  from  which,  by  his  new  and  living  way  of  pre- 
senting the  Messiah,  he  sought  to  extricate  the  whole 
nation,  and  did  extricate  his  disciples.  Ho  did  ex- 
tricate these,  in  that  he  fixed  their  thoughts  upon  him- 
self and  upon  an  ideal  of  inwardness,  mildness,  and 
self -renouncement,  instead  of  a  phantasmagory  of 
outward  grandeur  and  self-assertion.  But  at  the 
same  time  the  whole  train  of  extra-belief,  or  Abcr- 
glaube,  which  had  attached  itself  to  Israel's  old  creed, 
"  The  righteous  is  an  everlasting  foundation!  "  trans- 


RELIGION  NEW-GIVEN.  123 

ferred  itself  to  the  new  creed  brought  by  Christ,  "  I 
am  the  door !  by  me  if  any  man  enter  in,  he  shall  be 
saved !  "  And  there  arose,  accordingly,  a  new 
Aberglaube  like  the  old.  The  mild,  inward,  self- 
renouncing,  and  sacrificed  Servant  of  the  Eternal, 
the  new  and  better  Messiah,  was  yet,  before  the  pres- 
ent generation  passed,  to  come  on  the  clouds  of  heaven 
in  power  and  glory,  like  the  Messiah  of  Daniel,  to 
gather  by  trumpet-call  his  elect  from  the  four-winds, 
and  to  set  his  apostles  on  twelve  thrones  judging  the 
twelve  tribes  of  Israel.  The  motive  of  Christianity, 
— which  was,  in  truth,  that  pure  souls  "  knew  the 
voice  "  of  Jesus  as  sheep  know  the  voice  of  their  shep- 
herd, and  felt  after  seeing  and  hearing  him  that  his 
doctrine  and  ideal  was  what  they  wanted,  that  he  was 
"  indeed  the  saviour  of  the  world," — this  simple  mo- 
tive became  a  mixed  motive,  adding  to  its  first  con- 
tents a  vast  extra-belief  of  a  phantasmagorical  Advent 
of  Christ,  a  resurrection  and  judgment,  Christ's  ad- 
herents glorified,  his  rejectors  punished  everlastingly. 
And  when  the  generation  for  which  this  Advent 
was  first  fixed  had  passed  away  without  it,  Christians 
discovered  by  a  process  of  criticism  common  enough 
in  popular  theology,  but  by  which,  as  Bishop  Butler 
says  of  a  like  kind  of  process,  "  anything  may  be 
made  out  of  anything," — they  discovered  that  the 
Advent  had  never  really  been  fixed  for  that  first  gen- 
eration, but  that  it  was  foretold,  and  certainly  in 
store,  for  a  later  time.  So  the  Aberglaube  was  per- 
petuated, placed  out  of  reach  of  all  practical  test, 
and  made  stronger  than  ever,  With  the  multitude 


124  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

this  Aberglaube  or  extra-belief  inevitably  came  soon 
to  surpass  the  original  conviction  in  attractiveness 
and  seeming  certitude.  The  future  and  the  miracu- 
lous engaged  the  chief  attention  of  Christians;  and, 
in  accordance  with  this  strain  of  thought,  they  more 
and  more  rested  the  proof  of  Christianity,  not  on  its 
internal  evidence,  but  on  prediction  and  miracle. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

THE   PROOF   FROM   PROPHECY. 

"  ABERGLAUBE  is  the  poetry  of  life."  That  men 
should,  by  help  of  their  imagination,  take  short  cuts 
to  what  they  ardently  desire,  whether  the  triumph 
of  Israel  or  the  triumph  of  Christianity,  should  tell 
themselves  fairy-tales  about  it,  should  make  these 
fairy-tales  the  basis  for  what  is  far  more  sure  and 
solid  than  the  fairy-tales,  the  desire  itself, — all  this 
has  in  it,  we  repeat,  nothing  which  is  not  natural, 
nothing  blamable.  ^ay,  the  region  of  our  hopes  and 
presentiments  extends,  as  we  have  also  said,  far  be- 
yond the  region  of  what  we  can  know  with  certainty. 
What  we  reach  by  hop%  and  presentiment  may  yet  be 
true,  and  he  would  be  a  narrow  reasoner  who  denied, 
for  instance,  all  validity  to  the  idea  of  immortality, 
because  this  idea  rests  on  presentiment  mainly,  and 
does  not  admit  of  certain  demonstration.  In  re- 
ligion, above  all,  extra-belief  is  in  itself  no  matter, 
assuredly,  for  blame.  The  object  of  religion  is  con- 
duct; and  if  a  man  helps  himself  in  his  conduct  by 
taking  an  object  of  hope  and  presentiment  as  if  it 
were  an  object  of  certainty,  he  may  even  be  said 
to  gain  thereby  an  advantage. 

And  yet  there  is  always  a  drawback  to  a  man's  ad- 
vantage in  thus  treating,   in  religion  and  conduct, 

125 


1^6  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

what  is  extra-belief,  and  not  certain,  as  if  it  were 
matter  of  certainty,  and  in  making  it  his  ground  of 
action ; — he  pays  for  it.  The  time  comes  when  he 
discovers  that  it  is  not  certain ;  and  then  the  whole 
certainty  of  religion  seems  discredited,  and  the  basis 
of  conduct  gone.  This  danger  attends  the  reliance  on 
prediction  and  miracle  as  evidences  of  Christianity. 
They  have  been  attacked  as  a  part  of  the  "  cheat  "  or 
''imposture"  of  religion  and  of  Christianity.  For 
us,  religion  is  the  solidest  of  realities,  and  Christian- 
ity the  greatest  and  happiest  stroke  ever  yet  made 
for  human  perfection.  Prediction  and  miracle  were 
attributed  to  it  as  its  supports,  because  of  its  gran- 
deur, and  because  of  the  awe  and  admiration  which 
it  inspired.  Generations  of  men  have  helped  them- 
selves to  hold  firmer  to  it,  helped  themselves  in  con- 
duct, by  the  aid  of  these  supports.  "  Miracles 
prove,"  'men  have  said  and  thought,  "  that  the  order 
of  physical  nature  is  not  fate,  nor  a  mere  material 
constitution  of  things,  but  the  subject  of  a  free,  om- 
ni]x)tent  master.  Prophecy  fulfilled  proves  that 
neither  fate  nor  man  are  masters  of  the  world." 

And  to  take  prophecy  first.  "  The  conditions," 
it  is  said,  "  which  form  the  true  conclusive  standard 
of  a  prophetic  inspiration  are  these:  That  the  predic- 
tion be  known  to  have  been  promulgated  before  the 
event ;  that  the  event  be  such  as  could  not  have  been 
foreseen,  when  it  was  predicted,  by  any  effort  of  hu- 
man reason ;  and  that  the  event  and  the  prediction 
correspond  together  in  a  clear  accomplishment. 

*  Davison's  Discourses  on  Prophecy  ;  Discourse  II.  Part  2. 


THE  PROOF  FROM  PROPHECY.       127 

There  are  prophecies  in  Scripture  answering  to  the 
standard  of  an  absolute  proof.  Their  publication, 
their  fulfillment,  their  supernatural  prescience,  are 
all  fully  ascertained."  On  this  sort  of  ground  men 
came  to  rest  the  proof  of  Christianity. 

2. 

Now,  it  may  be  said,  indeed,  that  a  prediction  ful- 
filled, an  exhibition  of  supernatural  prescience, 
proves  nothing  for  or  against  the  truth  and  necessity 
of  conduct  and  righteousness.  But  it  must  be  al- 
lowed, notwithstanding,  that  while  human  nature  is 
what  it  is,  the  mass  of  men  are  likely  to  listen  more 
to  a  teacher  of  righteousness,  if  he  accompanies  his 
teaching  by  an  exhibition  of  supernatural  prescience. 
And  what  were  called  the  "  signal  predictions  "  con- 
cerning the  Christ  of  popular  theology,  as  they  stand 
in  our  Bibles,  had  and  have  undoubtedly  a  look  of  su- 
pernatural prescience.  The  employment  of  capital 
letters,  and  other  aids,  such  as  the  constant  use  of  the 
future  tense,  naturally  and  innocently  adopted  by  in- 
terpreters who  were  profoundly  convinced  that  Chris- 
tianity needed  these  express  predictions  and  that  they 
must  be  in  the  Bible,  enhanced,  certainly,  this  look; 
but  the  look,  even  without  these  aids,  was  sufficiently 
striking. 

That  Jacob  on  his  death-bed  should,  two  thousand 
years  before  Christ,  have  "  been  enabled,"  as  the 
phrase  is,  to  foretell  to  his  son  Judah  that  "  the  scep- 
tre shall  not  depart  from  Judah  until  Shiloh  (or  the 
*  Davison's  Discourses  on  Prophecy  ;  Discourses  IX,  and  XII 


128  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

Messiah)  come,  and  to  him  shall  the  gathering  of  the 
people  be,"  does  seem,  when  the  explanation  is  put 
with  it  that  the  Jewish  kingdom  lasted  till  the  Chris- 
tian era  and  then  perished,  a  miracle  of  prediction 
in  favor  of  our  current  Christian  theology.  That 
Jeremiah  should  have  "  been  enabled  "  to  foretell,  in 
the  name  of  Jehovah :  "  The  days  come  when  I  will 
raise  to  David  a  righteous  Branch ;  in  his  days  Judah 
shall  be  saved,  and  Israel  shall  dwell  safely;  and  this 
is  the  name  whereby  he  shall  be  called,  The  Lord  Our 
Righteousness !  "  does  seem  a  wonder  of  prediction 
in  favor  of  that  tenet  of  the  Godhead  of  the  Eternal 
Son,  for  which  the  Bishops  of  Winchester  and  Glou- 
cester are  so  anxious  to  do  something.  For  unques- 
tionably Jehovah  is  often  spoken  of  as  the  saviour  of 
Judah  and  Israel:  "All  flesh  shall  know  that  I  the 
Eternal  am  thy  saviour  arid  thy  redeemer,  the  mighty 
one  of  Jacob ;  "  and  in  the  prophecy  given  above  as 
Jeremiah's,  the  Branch  of  David  is  dearly  identified 
with  Jehovah.  Again,  that  David  should  say,  "  The 
Lord  said  unto  my  Lord,  Sit  thou  on  my  right  hand 
until  I  make  thy  foes  thy  footstool,"  does  seem  a 
prodigy  of  prediction  to  the  same  effect.  That  he 
should  say,  "  Kiss  the  Son,  lest  he  be  angry  and  so 
ye  perish,"  does  seem  a  supernatural ly  prescient  as- 
sertion of  the  Eternal  Sonship.  And  so  long  as  these 
prophecies  stand  as  they  are  here  given,  they  no  doubt 
bring  to  Christianity  all  the  support  (and  with  the 
mass  of  mankind  this  is  by  no  means  inconsiderable') 
which  it  can  derive  from  the  display  of  supernatural 
pro.science. 


THE  PROOF  FROM  PROPHECY.       129 

But  who  will  dispute  that  it  more  and  more  be- 
comes known  that  these  prophecies  cannot  stand  as 
we  have  here  given  them  ?  Manifestly,  it  more  and 
more  becomes  known,  that  the  passage  from  Genesis, 
with  its  mysterious  Shiloh  and  the  gathering  of  the 
people  to  him,  is  rightly  to  be  rendered  as  follows: 
<v  The  pre-eminence  shall  not  depart  from  Judah  so 
long  as  the  people  resort  to  Shiloh  (the  national  sanc- 
tuary before  Jerusalem  was  won)  ;  and  the  nations 
(the  heathen  Canaanites)  shall  obey  him."  We  here 
purposely  leave  (jut  of  sight  any  such  consideration 
as  that  our  actual  books  of  the  Old  Testament  came 
first  together  through  the  piety  of  the  house  of  Judah, 
and  when  the  destiny  of  Judah  was  already  traced; 
and  that  to  say  roundly :  "  Jacob  was  enabled  to 
foretell:  The  sceptre  shall  not  depart  from  Judah," 
as  if  we  were  speaking  of  a  prophecy  preached  and 
published  by  Dr.  Gumming,  is  wholly  inadmissible. 
For  this  consideration  is  of  force,  indeed,  but  it  is  a 
consideration  drawn  from  the  rules  of  literary  his- 
tory and  criticism,  and  not  likely  to  have  weight  with 
the  mass  of  mankind.  Palpable  error  and  mistrans- 
lation are  what  will  have  weight  with  them. 

And  what,  then,  will  they  say  as  they  come  to 
know  (and  do  not  and  must  not  more  and  more  of 
them  come  to  know  it  every  day  ?)  that  Jeremiah's 
supposed  signal  identification  of  Christ  with  the  God 
of  Israel :  "  I  will  raise  to  David  a  righteous  Branch, 
and  this  is  the  name  whereby  he  shall  be  called,  The 
Lnrd  Onr  Righteousness,"  runs  really:  "  T  will  raise 
to  David  a  righteous  branch  ;  in  his  days  Judah  shall 
9 


130  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

be  saved  and  Israel  shall  dwell  safely ;  and  this  is  the 
name  whereby  they  shall  call  themselves:  The  Eter- 
nal is  our  righteousness!"  The  prophecy  thus  be- 
comes simply  one  of  the  many  promises  of  a  successor 
to  David  under  whom  the  Hebrew  people  should  trust 
in  the  Eternal  and  follow  righteousness;  just  as  the 
prophecy  from  Genesis  is  one  of  the  many  prophecies 
<>f  the  enduring  continuance  of  the  greatness  of 
Judah.  "  The  Lord  said  unto  my  Lord,"  in  like 
manner — will  not  people  be  startled  when  they  find 
that  it  ought  to  run  instead :  "'  The  Eternal  said  unto 
11  iv  lord  the  king," — a  simple  promise  of  victory  to 
a  prince  of  God's  chosen  people? — and  that,  "  Kiss 
the  Son,"  is  in  reality,  "  Be  warned,"  or,  "  be  in- 
structed ;  "  "  lay  hold,"  according  to  the  Septuagint, 
"  on  instruction  ?  " 


3. 


Leslie,  in  his  once  famous  "  Short  and  i 
Method  with  the  Deists,"  speaks  of  the  impugners  of 
the  current  evidences  of  Christianity  as  men  who 
consider  the  Scripture  histories  and  the  Christian 
religion  "  cheats  and  impositions  of  cunning  and  de- 
signing men  upon  the  credulity  of  simple  people/' 
Collins,  and  the  whole  array  of  writers  at  whom  Les- 
lie aims  this,  greatly  need  to  be  re-surveyed  from  the 
point  of  view  of  our  own  age.  Xevertheless,  we  may 
grant  that  some  of  them,  at  any  rate,  conduct  their 
attacks  on  the  current  evidences  for  Christianity  in 
such  a  manner  as  to  give  the  notion  that  in  their  opin- 


THE  PROOF  FROM  PROPHECY.       131 

ion  Christianity  itself,  and  religion,  is  a  cheat  and 
an  imposture.  But  how  far  more  prone  will  the 
mass  of  mankind  be  to  hearken  to  this  opinion,  if 
they  have  been  kept  intent  on  predictions  such  as 
those  of  which  we  have  given  specimens ;  if  they  have 
been  kept  full  of  the  great  importance  of  this  nar- 
row line  of  mechanical  evidence,  and  then  suddenly 
find  that  this  line  of  evidence  gives  way  at  all  points  ? 
It  can  hardly  be  gainsaid,  that,  to  a  delicate  and  pen- 
etrating criticism,  it  has  long  been  manifest  that  the 
chief  literal  fulfilment  by  Christ  of  things  said  by  the 
prophets  was  the  fulfilment  such  as  wrould  naturally 
be  given  by  one  who  nourished  his  spirit  on  the 
prophets  and  on  living  and  acting  their  words.  The 
great  prophecies  of  Isaiah  and  Jeremiah  are,  critics 
can  now  see,  not  strictly  predictions  at  all;  and  pre- 
dictions which  are  strictly  meant  as  such,  like  those 
in  the  Book  of  Daniel,  are  an  embarrassment  to  the 
Bible  rather  than  a  main  element  of  it.  The  "  Zeit- 
Geist,"  and  the  mere  spread  of  what  is  called  en- 
lightenment, superficial  and  barren  as  this  often  is, 
will  inevitably,  before  long,  make  this  conviction  of 
criticism  a  popular  opinion  held  far  and  wide.  And 
then,  what  will  be  their  case,  who  have  been  so  long 
and  sedulously  taught  to  rely  on  supernatural  predic- 
tions as  a  mainstay  ( 

The  same  must  be  said  of  miracles.  The  substitu- 
tion of  some  other  proof  of  Christianity  for  this  ac- 
customed proof  is  now  to  be  desired  most  by  those 
who  most  think  Christianity  of  importance.  That 
old  friend  of  ours  on  whom  we  have  formerly  com- 


132  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

mented,*  who  insists  upon  it  that  Christianity  is  and 
shall  be  nothing  else  but  this,  "  that  Christ  promised 
Paradise  to  the  saint  and  threatened  the  worldly  man 
with  hell-fire,  and  proved  his  power  to  promise  and 
threaten  by  rising  from  the  dead  and  ascending  into 
heaven,"  is  certainly  not  the  guide  whom  lovers  of 
Christianity,  if  they  could  discern  what  it  is  that  he 
really  expects  and  aims  at,  and  what  it  is  which  tin  y 
themselves  really  desire,  would  think  it  wise  to  fol- 
low. 

But  the  subject  of  miracles  is  a  very  great  one ;  it 
includes  within  itself,  indeed,  the  whole  question 
about  "  supernatural  prescience,"  which  meets  us 
when  we  deal  with  prophecy.  And  this  great  sub- 
ject requires,  in  order  that  we  may  deal  with  it  prop 
erly,  some  little  recapitulation  of  our  original  design 
in  this  essay,  and  of  the  circumstances  in  which  flu- 
cause  of  religion  and  of  the  Bible  seems  to  be  at  this 
moment  placed. 

*  St.  Paul  and  Protestantism,  p.  157. 


CHAPTER  V. 

THE  PROOF  FROM  MIRACLES. 

WE  have  seen  that  some  new  treatment  or  otner 
the  religion  of  the  Bible  certainly  seems  to  require, 
for  it  is  attacked  on  all  sides,  and  the  theologians  are 
not  so  successful  as  one  might  wish  in  defending  it. 
One  critic  says,  that  if  these  islands  had  no  religion 
at  all,  it  would  not  enter  into  his  mind  to  introduce 
the  religious  and  ethical  idea  by  the  agency  of  the 
Bible ;  another,  that  though  certain  commonplaces 
are  common  to  all  systems  of  mortality,  yet  the  Bible 
way  of  enunciating  these  commonplaces  no  longer 
suits  us.  And  we  may  rest  assured,  he  adds,  that  by 
saying  what  we  think  in  some  other,  more  congenial, 
language,  we  shall  really  be  taking  the  shortest  road 
to  discovering  the  new  doctrines  which  will  satisfy 
at  once  our  reason  and  our  imagination.  Another 
critic  goes  farther  still,  and  calls  Bible  religion  not 
only  destitute  of  a  modern  and  congenial  way  of  stat- 
ing its  commonplacea  of  morality,  but  a  defacer  and 
disfigurer  of  moral  treasures  which  were  once  in  bet- 
ter keeping.  The  more  one  studies,  the  more,  says 
he,  one  is  convinced,  that  the  religion  which  calls  it- 
self revealed  contains,  in  the  way  of  what  is  good, 
nothing  which  is  not  the  incoherent  and  ill-digested 

133 


104  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

residue  of  the  wisdom  of  the  ancients.  To  the  same 
effect  the  Duke  of  Somerset, — who  has  been  afford- 
ing lately  proof  to  the  world  that  our  aristocratic  class 
are  not,  as  has  been  said,  inaccessible  to  ideas  and 
merely  polite,  but  that  they  are  familiar,  on  the  con- 
trary, with  modern  criticism  of  the  most  advanced 
kind, — the  Duke  of  Somerset  finds  very  much  to  be 
dissatisfied  with  in  tho  Bible  and  its  teaching;  al- 
though the  soul,  he  says,  has  (outside  the  Bible,  ap- 
parently) one  unassailable  fortress  to  which  she  may 
retire, — faith  in  God. 

All  this  seems  to  threaten  to  push  Bible  religion 
from  the  place  it  has  long  held  in  our  affections. 
And  even  what  the  most  modern  criticism  of  all  some- 
times does,  to  save  it  and  set  it  up  again,  can  hardly 
be  called  very  flattering  to  it.  For  whereas  the  He- 
brew race  imagined  that  to  them  were  committed  the 
oracles  of  God,  and  that  their  God,  "  the  Eternal  who 
loveth  righteousness,"  was  the  God  to  whom  every 
knee  should  bow  and  every  tongue  swear,  there  now 
comes  Monsieur  Emile  Burnouf,  the  accomplished 
son  of  a  gifted  father,  and  will  prove  to  us  in  a  thick 
volume*  that  the  oracles  of  God  were  not  committed 
to  a  Semitic  race  at  all,  but  to  the  Aryan ;  that  the 
true  God  is  not  Israel's  God  at  all,  but  is  "  the  idea 
of  the  absolute  "  which  Israel  could  never  properly 
master.  This  "  sacred  theory  of  the  Aryas,"  it 
seems,  passed  into  Palestine  from  Persia  and  India, 
and  got  possession  of  the  founder  of  Christianity  and 
of  his  greatest  :ip<>stles,  St.  Paul  and  St.  John;  be- 
*  La  Science  des  Religions.  Paris,  1872. 


THE  PROOF  FROM  MIRACLES.  135 

coming  more  perfect,  and  returning  more  and  more 
to  its  true  character  of  a  "  transcendent  metaphysic," 
as  the  doctors  of  the  Christian  Church  developed  it. 
So  that  we  Christians,  who  are  Aryas,  may  have  the 
satisfaction  of  thinking  that  "  the  religion  of  Christ 
has  not  come  to  us  from  the  Semites,"  and  that  "  it 
is  in  the  hymns  of  the  Veda  and  not  in  the  Bible  that 
we  are  to  look  for  the  primordial  source  of  our  re- 
ligion." The  theory  of  Christ  is  accordingly  the 
theory  of  the  Vedic  Agni,  or  fire;  the  Incarnation 
represents  the  Vedic  solemnity  of  the  production  of 
fire,  symbol  of  force  of  every  kind,  of  all  movement, 
life,  and  thought;  the  Trinity  of  Father,  Son,  and 
Spirit  is  the  Vedic  Trinity  of  Sun,  Fire,  and  Wind ; 
and  God,  finally,  is  "  a  cosmic  unity." 

Such  speculations  almost  take  away  the  breath  of 
a  mere  man  of  letters.  What  one  is  inclined  to  say 
of  them  is  this:  Undoubtedly  these  exploits  of  the 
Aryan  genius  are  gratifying  to  us  members  of  the 
Aryan  race.  The  God  of  the  Hebrews,  M.  Burnouf 
says  expressly,  "  was  not  a  cosmic  unity ;  "  the  re- 
ligion of  the  Hebrews  "  had  not  that  transcendent 
metaphysic  which  the  genius  of  the  Aryas  requires ;  " 
and,  "  in  passing  from  the  Aryan  race  to  the  inferior 
races,  religion  underwent  a  deterioration  due  to  the 
physical  and  moral  constitution  of  these  races."  For 
religion,  it  must  be  remembered,  is,  in  M.  Burnouf's 
view,  fundamentally  a  science ;  "  a  metaphysical  con- 
ception, a  theory,  a  synthetic  explanation  of  the  uni- 
verse." Xow  "  the  perfect  Arya  is  capable  of  a 
great  deal  of  science;  the  Semite  is  inferior  to  him." 


136  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA 

As  Arjas  or  Aryans,  then,  we  ought  to  be  pleased  at 
having  vindicated  the  greatness  of  our  race,  and  hav- 
ing not  borrowed  a  Semitic  religion,  but  transformed 
it  by  importing  our  own  metaphysics  into  it. 

And  this  seems  to  harmonize  very  well  with  what 
the  Bishops  of  Winchester  and  Gloucester  say  about 
"  doing  something  for  the  honor  of  Our  Lord's  God- 
head," and  about  "  the  infinite  separation  for  time 
and  for  eternity  which  is  involved  in  rejecting  the 
Godhead  of  the  Eternal  Son,  Very  God  of  Very 
God,  Light  of  Light ;  "  and  also  with  the  Athanasian 
Creed  generally,  and  with  what  the  clergy  write  to  tho 
"Guardian"  about  "eternal  life  being  unquestion- 
ably annexed  to  a  right  knowledge  of  the  Godhead." 
For  all  these  have  in  view  high  science  and  meta- 
physics, worthy  of  the  Aryas.  But  to  Bible  religion, 
in  the  plain  sense  of  the  word,  it  is  not  flattering; 
for  it  throws  overboard  almost  entirely  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, and  makes  the  essence  of  the  Xew  to  consist  in 
an  esoteric  doctrine  not  very  visible  there,  but  more 
fully  developed  outside  of  it.  The  metaphysical  ele- 
ment is  made  the  fundamental  element  in  religion  : 
but  "  the  Bible  books,  especially  the  more  ancient  of 
them,  are  destitute  of  metaphysics,  and  consequently 
of  method  and  classification  in  their  ideas."  I-rael, 
therefore,  instead  of  being  a  light  of  the  Gentiles  and 
a  salvation  to  the  ends  of  the  earth,  falls  to  a  place 
in  the  world's  religious  history  behind  the  Arya.  I  If 
is  dismissed  as  ranking  anthropologically  between  the 
Aryas  and  the  yellow  men;  as  having  frizzled  hair, 
thick  lips,  small  calves,  flat  feet,  and  belonging,  above 


THE  PROOF  FROM  MIRACLES.  137 

all,  to  those  "  occipital  races  "  whose  brain  cannot 
grow  after  the  age  of  sixteen ;  whereas  the  brain  of  a 
theological  Arya,  such  as  one  of  our  bishops,  may  go 
on  growing  all  his  life. 

But  we  who  think  that  the  Old  Testament  leads 
surely  up  to  the  Xe\v,  who  believe  that,  indeed,  "  sal- 
vation is  of  the  Jews,"  and  that,  for  what  concerns 
conduct  or  righteousness  (that  is,  for  what  concerns 
three  fourths  of  human  life),  they  and  their  docu- 
ments can  no  more  be  neglected  by  whoever  would 
make  proficiency  in  it,  than  Greece  can  be  neglected 
by  any  one  who  would  make  proficiency  in  art,  or 
NVwton's  discoveries  by  whoever  would  comprehend 
the  world's  physical  laws, — we  are  naturally  not  sat- 
isfied with  this  treatment  of  Israel  and  the  Bible. 
And  admitting  that  Israel  shows  no  talent  for  meta- 
physics, we  say  that  his  religious  greatness  is  just 
this,  that  he  does  not  found  religion  on  metaphysics, 
but  on  moral  experience,  which  is  a  much  simpler 
matter ;  and  that,  ever  since  the  apparition  of  Israel 
and  the  Bible,  religion  is  no  longer  what,  according 
to  M.  Burnouf,  to  our  Aryan  forefathers  in  the  valley 
of  the  Oxus  it  was, — and  what  perhaps  it  really  was 
to  tli cm, — a  metaphysical  theory,  but  is  what  Israel 
has  made  it. 

And  what  Israel  made,  and  how  he  made  it,  we 
seek  to  show  from  the  Bible  itself.  Thus  we  hope 
to  win  for  the  Bible  and  its  religion,  which  seem  to 
us  so  indispensable  to  the  world,  an  access  to  many 
of  those  who  now  neglect  them.  For  there  is  this 
to  be  said  against  M.  Burnouf 's  metaphysics :  no  one 


138  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

can  allege  that  the  Bible  has  failed  to  win  access  for 
want  of  metaphysics  being  applied  to  it.  Meta- 
physics are  just  what  all  our  theology  runs  up  into, 
and  our  bishops,  as  we  have  seen,  are  here  particu- 
larly strong.  But  we  have  seen  that  the  making  re- 
ligion into  metaphysics  is  the  weakening  of  religion ; 
now  M.  Burnouf  makes  religion  into  metaphysics 
more  than  ever.  Yet  evidently  the  metaphysical 
method  lacks  power  for  laying  hold  on  people,  and 
compelling  them  to  receive  the  Bible  from  it;  it  is 
felt  to  be  inconclusive  as  thus  employed,  and  its  in- 
conclusiveness  tells  against  the  Bible.  This  is  the 
case  with  the  metaphysics  of  our  bishops,  and  it  will 
be  the  same  with  M.  Burnouf's  new  metaphysics  also. 
They  will  be  found,  we  fear,  to  have  an  inconclusive- 
ness  in  their  recommendation  of  Christianity.  To 
very  many  persons,  indeed  to  the  great  majority,  such 
a  method,  in  such  a  matter,  must  be  inconclusive. 


2. 


Therefore  we  would  not  allow  ourselves  to  start 
with  any  metaphysical  conception  at  all,  not  with 
the  monotheistic  idea,  as  it  is  styled,  any  more  than 
with  the  pantheistic  idea ;  and,  indeed,  we  are  quite 
sure  that  Israel  himself  began  with  nothing  of  the, 
kind.  The  idea  of  God,  as  it  is  given  us  in  the 
Bible,  rests,  we  say,  not  on  a  metaphysical  concep- 
tion of  the  necessity  of  certain  deductions  from  our 
ideas  of  cause,  existence,  identity,  and  the  like;  but 
on  a  inoml  perception  of  a  rule  of  conduct  not  of  our 


THE  PROOF  FROM  MIRACLES.  139 

own  making,  into  which  we  are  born,  and  which  ex- 
ists whether  we  will  or  no;  of  awe  at  its  grandeur 
and  necessity,  and  of  gratitude  at  its  beneficence. 
This  is  the  great  original  revelation  made  to  Israel, 
this  is  his  "  Eternal." 

Man,  however,  as  Goethe  says,  "  never  knows  how 
anthropomorphic  he  is."  Israel  described  his  Eter- 
nal in  the  language  of  poetry  and  emotion,  and  could 
not  thus  describe  him  but  with  the  character  of  a  man. 
Scientifically  he  never  attempted  to  describe  him  at 
all.  But  still  the  Eternal  was  ever  at  last  reducible, 
for  Israel,  to  the  reality  of  experience  out  of  which 
the  revelation  sprang ;  he  was  "  the  righteous  Eternal 
who  loveth  righteousness."  They  who  "  seek  the 
Eternal,"  and  they  who  "  follow  after  righteousness," 
were  identical ;  just  as,  conversely,  they  who  "  fear 
the  Eternal,"  and  they  who  "  depart  from  evil,"  were 
identical.  Above  all :  "  He  that  feareth  the  Eternal 
happy  is  he ;  "  "  it  is  joy  to  the  just  to  do  judg- 
ment; "  "  righteousness  tendeth  to  life;  "  "  the  right- 
eous is  an  everlasting  foundation." 

But,  as  time  went  on,  facts  seemed,  we  saw,  to  con- 
tradict this  fundamental  belief,  to  refute  this  faith 
in  the  Eternal ;  material  forces  prevailed,  and  God 
appeared,  as  they  say,  to  be  on  the  side  of  the  big 
battalions.  The  great  unrighteous  kingdoms  of  the 
world,  kingdoms  which  cared  far  less  than  Israel  for 
righteousness,  and  for  the  Eternal  who  makes  for 
righteousness,  overpowered  Israel.  Prophecy  as- 
sured him  that  the  triumph  of  the  Eternal's  cause  and 
people  was  certain:  "Behold,  the  Eternal's  hand  is 


140  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

not  shortened  that  it  cannot  save."  The  triumph 
was  but  adjourned  through  Israel's  own  sins:  "  Your 
iniquities  have  separated  between  you  and  your  God." 
Prophecy  directed  his  thoughts  to  the  future,  and 
promised  to  him  a  new  everlasting  kingdom  under  a 
heaven-sent  leader.  The  characters  of  this  kingdom 
and  leader  were  more  spiritualized  by  one  prophet, 
more  materialized  by  another.  As  time  went  on,  in 
the  last  centuries  before  our  era,  they  became  iucrea-- 
ingly  turbid  and  phantasmagorical.  In  addition  t<> 
his  original  experimental  belief  in  the  almighty  Eter- 
nal who  makes  for  righteousness,  Israel  had  now  a 
vast  Aberglaube ,  an  after  or  extra-belief,  not  exj>eri- 
mental,  in  an  approaching  kingdom  of  the  saints,  to 
be  established  by  an  Anointed,  a  Messiah,  "  <>ne  like 
the  Son  of  Man,"  commissioned  from  the  Ancient 
of  Days  and  coming  in  the  clouds  of  heaven. 

Jesus  came,  calling  himself  the  Messiah,  tin  > 
of  Man,  the  Son  of  God;  and  the  question  is.  What 
is  the  true  meaning  of  these  assertions  of  his,  and  of 
all  his  teaching?  It  is  the  same  question  \\e  had 
about  the  Old  Testament.  Is  the  language  scientific, 
or,  as  we  say,  literary;  that  is,  the  language  of  poetry 
and  emotion,  approximative  language,  thrown  mil.  as 
it  were,  at  certain  great  objects  which  the  human 
mind  augurs  and  feels  after,  but  not  language  ac- 
curately defining  them?  Popular  religion  say-,  we 
know,  that  the  language  is  scientific:  that  the  God  of 
the  Old  Testament  is  a  great  Personal  First  Cause, 
who  thinks  and  loves  (for  this  too.  it  seem-.  \ve  ought 
to  have  added),  the  moral  and  intelligent 


THE  PROOF  FROM  MIRACLES. 

of  the  universe.  Learned  religion,  the  metaphysical 
theology  of  our  bishops,  proves  or  confirms  this  by 
abstruse  reasoning  of  our  ideas  from  cause,  design, 
existence,  identity,  and  so  on.  Popular  religion  rests 
it  altogether  on  miracles. 

The  God  of  Israel,  for  popular  religion,  is  a  mag- 
nified and  non-natural  man  who  has  really  worked 
stupendous  miracles,  where.as  the  Gods  of  the  heathen 
were  vainly  imagined  to  be  able  to  work  them,  but 
could  not,  and  had  therefore  no  real  existence.  Of 
this  God,  Jesus  for  popular  religion  is  the  Son.  He 
came  to  appease  God's  wrath  against  sinful  men  by 
the  sacrifice  of  himself;  and  he  proved  his  Sonship 
by  a  course  of  stupendous  miracles,  and  by.  the  won- 
derful accomplishment  in  him  of  the  supernatural 
Messianic  predictions  of  prophecy.  Here,  again, 
learned  religion  elucidates  and  develops  the  relation 
of  the  Son  to  the  Father  by  a  copious  exhibition  of 
metaphysics;  but  for  popular  religion  the  relation- 
ship, and  the  authority  of  Jesus  which  derives  from 
it,  is  altogether  established  by  miracle. 

Now,  we  have  seen  that  our  bishops  and  their  met- 
aphysics are  so  little  convincing,  that  many  people 
throw  the  Bible  quite  aside,  and  will  not  attend  to  it, 
because  they  are  given  to  understand  that  the  meta- 
physics go  necessarily  along  with  it,  and  that  one  can- 
not be  taken  without  the  other.  So  far,  then,  the  tal- 
ents of  the  Bishops  of  Winchester  and  Gloucester,  and 
their  zeal  to  do  something  for  the  honor  of  the  Eternal 
Son's  Godhead,  may  be  said  to  be  actual  obstacles 
to  the  receiving  and  studying  of  the  Bible.  But  the 


LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

same  may  now  be  also  said  of  the  popular  theology 
which  rests  the  Bible's  authority  and  the  Christian  re- 
ligion on  miracle.  To  a  great  many  persons  this  is 
tantamount  to  stopping  their  use  of  the  Bible  and  of 
the  Christian  religion ;  for  they  have  made  up  their 
minds  that  what  is  popularly  called  miracle  never 
really  happens  nor  can  happen,  and  that  the  belief 
in  it  arises  out  of  ignorance,  fraud,  or  mistake.  To 
these  persons  we  restore  the  use  of  the  Bible,  if,  while 
showing  them  that  the  Bible  language  is  not  scientific, 
but  the  language  of  common  speech  or  of  poetry  and 
eloquence,  approximative  language  thrown  out  at  cer- 
tain great  objects  of  consciousness  which  it  does  not 
pretend  to  define  fully,  we  convince  them  at  the 
same  time  that  this  language  deals  with  facts  of  ex- 
perience most  momentous  and  real. 

We  have  sought  to  do  this  for  the  language  of  the 
Old  Testament  first,  and  we  now  seek  to  do  it  for 
that  of  the  New.  Our  attempt,  therefore,  has  in 
view  those  who  now  throw  the  Bible  aside,  not  those 
who  receive  it  on  the^round  supplied  either  by  popu- 
lar theology  or  by  metaphysical  theology.  For  per- 
sons of  this  kind,  what  we  say  neither  will  have,  nor 
seeks  to  have,  any  constraining  force  at  all;  only  it 
is  rendered  necessary  by  the  want  of  constraining 
force,  for  other-  than  themselves,  in  their  own  tin  - 
ology.  1I< >w  little  constraining  force  metaphysical 
dogma  has,  we  all  see.  And  we  have  shown,  too, 
how  the  proof  from  the  fulfilment  in  Christ  of  a  num- 
ber of  definite,  detailed  predictions,  supposed  to  have 
been  made  with  supernatural  prescience  about  him 


THE  PROOF  FROM  MIRACLES.       143 

long  beforehand,  is  losing,  and  seems  likely  more  and 
more  to  lose,  its  constraining  force.  It  is  found 
that  the  predictions  and  their  fulfilment  are  not  what 
they  are  said  to  be. 

Xow  we  come  to  miracles,  more  specially  so  called ; 
and  we  have  to  see  whether  the  constraining  force  of 
this  proof,  too,  must  not  be  admitted  to  be  far  less 
than  it  used  to  be,  and  whether  some  other  source  of 
authority  for  the  Bible  is  not  much  to  be  desired. 


3. 


That  miracles,  when  fully  believed,  are  felt  by  men 
in  general  to  be  a  source  of  authority,  it  is  absurd 
to  deny.  One  may  say,  indeed :  Suppose  I  could 
change  the  pen  with  which  I  write  this  into  a  pen- 
wiper, I  should  not  thus  make  what  I  write  any  the 
truer  or  more  convincing.  That  may  be  so  in  reality, 
but  the  mass  of  mankind  feel  differently.  In  the 
judgment  of  the  mass  of  mankind,  could  I  visibly 
and  undeniably  change  the  pen  with  which  I  write 
this  into  a  pen-wiper,  not  only  would  this  which  I 
write  acquire  a  claim  to  be  held  perfectly  true  and 
convincing,  but  I  should  even  be  entitled  to  affirm, 
and  to  be  believed  in  affirming,  propositions  the  most 
palpably  at  war  with  common  fact  and  experience. 
It  is  almost  impossible  to  exaggerate  the  proneness  of 
the  human  mind  to  take  miracles  as  evidence,  and  to 
seek  for  miracles  as  evidence ;  or  the  extent  to  which 
religion,  and  religion  of  a  true  and  admirable  kind, 
has  been,  and  is  still,  held  in  connection  with  a  re- 


144  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

liance  upon  miracles.  This  reliance  will  long  out- 
last the  reliance  on  the  supernatural  prescience  of 
prophecy,  for  it  is  not  exposed  to  the  same  tests.  To 
pick  Scripture  miracles  one  by  one  to  pieces  is  an 
odious  and  repulsive  task;  it  is  also  an  unprofitable 
one,  for  whatever  we  may  think  of  the  affirmative 
demonstrations  of  them,  a  negative  demonstration  of 
them  is,  from  the  circumstances  of  the  case,  impossi- 
ble. And  yet  the  human  mind  is  assuredly  passing 
away,  however  slowly,  from  this  hold  of  reliance  also ; 
and  those  who  make  it  their  stay  will  more  and  more 
find  it  fail  them,  will  be  more  and  more  disturbed, 
shaken,  distressed,  and  bewildered. 

For  it  is  what  we  call  the  Time-Spirit  that  is 
sapping  the  proof  from  miracles, — it  is  the  "  Zeit- 
Geist  "  itself.  Whether  we  attack  them,  or  whether 
wo  defend  them,  does  not  much  matter;  the  human 
mind,  as  its  experience  widens,  is  turning  ;i\v;iy  from 
them.  And  for  this  reason:  it  sees,  as  its  experience 
widens,  howr  they  arise.  It  sees  that,  under  certain 
circumstances,  they  always  do  arise;  and  that  they 
have  not  more  solidity  in  one  case  than  smother.  Un- 
der certain  circumstances,  wherever  men  are  found, 
there  is,  as  Shakespeare  says, — 

"  No  natural  exhalation  in  the  sky. 
No  scape  of  nature,  no  distemper'd  clay, 
No  common  wind,  no  custotned  event. 
But  they  will  pluck  away  his  natural  cause, 
And  call  them  meteors,  prodigies,  and  signs, 
Abortives,  presages,  and  tongues  of  heaven." 

Imposture  is  so  far  from  being  the  general  rule  in 
these  cases,  that  it  is  the  rare  exception.  Signs  and 


THE  PROOF  FROM  MIRACLES.       145 

wonders  men's  minds  will  have,  and  they  create  them 
honestly  and  naturally;  yet  not  so  but  that  we  can 
see  how  they  created  them. 

Roman  Catholics  fancy  that  Bible  miracles  and  the 
miracles  of  their  Church  form  a  class  by  themselves ; 
Protestants  fancy  that  Bible  miracles,  alone,  form  a 
class  by  themselves.  This  was  eminently  the  posture 
of  mind  of  the  late  Archbishop  Whately: — to  hold 
that  all  other  miracles  would  turn  out  to  be  impos- 
tures, or  capable  of  a  natural  explanation,  but  that 
Bible  miracles  would  stand  sifting  by  a  London  spe- 
cial jury  or  by  a  committee  of  scientific  men.  No 
acuteness  can  save  such  notions,  as  our  knowledge 
widens,  from  being  seen  to  be  mere  extravagances, 
and  the  Protestant  notion  is  doomed  to  an  earlier 
ruin  than  the  Catholic.  For  the  Catholic  notion  ad- 
mits miracles  in  the  mass;  the  Protestant  notion  in- 
vites to  a  criticism  by  which  it  must  finally  itself 
perish.  When  Stephen  was  martyred,  he  looked  up 
into  heaven  and  saw  the  glory  of  God,  and  Jesus 
standing  on  the  right  hand  of  God.  That,  says  the 
Protestant,  is  solid  fact.  At  the  martyrdom  of  St. 
Fructuosus,  Babylas  and  Mygdone,  the  Christian  ser- 
vants of  the  Roman  governor,  saw  the  heavens  open, 
and  the  saint  and  his  deacon  Eulogius  carried  up  on 
high  with  crowns  on  their  heads.  That  is,  says  the 
Protestant,  imposture  or  else  illusion.  St.  Paul 
hears  on  his  way  to  Damascus  the  voice  of  Jesus  say 
to  him :  "  Saul,  Saul,  why  persecutest  thou  me  ?  " 
That,  again,  is  solid  fact.  The  companion  of  St. 
Thomas  Aquinas  hears  a  voice  from  the  crucifix  say 
10 


146  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

to  the  praying  saint :  "Thou  hast  written  well  of  me. 
Thomas;  what  recompense  dost  thou  desire?  "  That, 
again,  is  imposture  or  else  illusion.  Why?  It  is 
impossible  to  find  any  criterion  by  which  one  of  these 
incidents  may  establish  its  claim  to  a  solidity  which 
we  refuse  to  the  others. 

One  of  two  things  must  be  made  out  in  order  to 
place  either  the  Bible  miracles  alone,  or  the  "Bible 
miracles  and  the  miracles  of  the  Catholic  Church 
with  them,  in  a  class  by  themselves.  Either  they 
must  be  shown  to  have  arisen  in  a  time  eminently  un- 
favorable to  such  a  process  as  Shakespeare  describes, 
to  amplification  and  the  production  of  legend;  or  they 
must  be  shown  to  be  recorded  in  documents  of  an 
eminently  historical  mode  of  birth  and  publication. 
But  surely  it  is  manifest  that  the  Bible  miracles  fulfil 
neither  of  these  conditions.  It  was  said  that  the 
waters  of  the  Pamphylian  Sea  miraculously  opened 
a  passage  for  the  army  of  Alexander  the  Great.  Ad- 
miral Beaufort,  however,  tells  us  that,  "  though  there 
are  no  tides  in  this  part  of  the  Mediterranean,  a  con- 
siderable depression  of  the  sea  is  caused  by  loirr- 
continued  north  winds;  and  Alexander,  taking  ad- 
vantage of  such  a  moment,  may  have  dashed  on  with- 
out impediment;"  *  and  we  accept  the  explanation 
as  a  matter  of  course.  But  the  waters  of  the  Urd 
Sea  are  said  to  have  miraculously  opened  a  passair' 
for  the  children  of  Israel ;  and  we  insist  on  the  literal 
truth  of  this  story,  and  reject  natural  explanations 
as  monstrous.  Yet  the  time  and  circumstances  of  the 
*  Beaufort's  Karamania,  p.  116. 


THE  PROOF  FROM  MIRACLES.  147 

flight  from  Egypt  were  a  thousand  times  more  fa- 
vorable to  the  rise  of  some  natural  incident  into  a 
miracle,  than  the  age  of  Alexander.  They  were  a 
time  and  circumstances  of  less  broad  daylight.  It 
\v;is  said,  again,  that  during  the  battle  of  Leuctra 
the  gates  of  the  Heraculeum  at  Thebes  suddenly 
opened  and  the  armor  of  Hercules  vanished  from  the 
temple,  to  enable  the  god  to  take  part  with  the  The- 
bans  in  the  battle.  Probably  there  was  some  real 
circumstance,  however  slight,  which  gave  a  founda- 
tion for  the  story.  But  this  is  the  most  we  think  of 
saving  in  its  favor;  the  literal  story  it  never  even 
occurs  to  one  of  us  to  believe.  But  that  the  walls  of 
Jericho  literally  fell  down  at  the  sound  of  the  trum- 
pets of  Joshua,  we  are  asked  to  believe,  told  that  it  is 
impious  to  disbelieve  it.  Yet  which  place  and  time 
were  most  likely  to  generate  a  miraculous  story  with 
ease, — Hellas  and  the  days  of  Epaminondas,  or  Pales- 
tine and  the  days  of  Joshua  ?  And  of  documentary 
records,  which  are  the  most  historical  in  their  way  of 
being  generated  and  propagated,  which  are  the  most 
favorable  for  the  a'dmission  of  legend  and  miracle  of 
all  kinds, — the  Old  Testament  narratives  with  their 
incubation  of  centuries,  and  the  New  Testament  nar- 
ratives with  their  incubation  of  a  century  (and  tra- 
dition active  all  the  while),  or  the  narratives,  say,  of 
Herodotus  or  Plutarch  ? 

None  of  them  are  what  we  call  critical.  Experi- 
ence of  the  history  of  the  human  mind,  and  of  men's 
habits  of  seeing,  sifting,  and  relating,  convinces  us 
that  the  miraculous  stories  of  Herodotus  or  Plutarch 


148  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

do  grow  out  of  the  process  described  by  Shakespeare. 
But  we  shall  find  ourselves  inevitably  led,  sooner  or 
later,  to  extend  the  same  rule  to  all  miraculous 
stories;  nay,  the  considerations  which  apply  in  other 
cases  apply,  we  shall  most  surely  discover,  with  even 
greater  force  in  the  case  of  Bible  miracles. 


This  being  so,  there  is  nothing  one  would  more  de- 
sire for  a  person  or  document  one  greatly  values, 
than  to  make  them  independent  of  miracles.  And 
with  regard  to  the  Old  Testament  we  have  done  tin's; 
for  we  have  shown  that  the  essential  matter  in  the 
Old  Testament  is  the  revelation  to  Israel  of  the  im- 
measurable grandeur,  the  eternal  necessity,  the  price- 
less blessing  of  that  with  which  not  less  than  throe 
fourths  of  human  life  is  indeed  concerned, — right- 
eousness. And  it  makes  no  difference  to  the  precious- 
ness  of  this  revelation,  whether  we  believe  that  the 
Red  Sea  miraculously  o])cned  a  passage  to  the  Israel- 
ites, and  the  walls  of  Jericho  miraculously  fell  down 
at  the  blast  of  Joshua's  trumpet,  or  that  these  stories 
arose  in  the  same  way  as  other  stories  of  the  kind. 
In  the  Xew  Testament  the  essential  thing  is  the  rev- 
elation  of  Christ.  For  this  too,  then,  if  one  values 
it,  one's  great  wish  must  in  like  manner  be  to  make 
it  independent  of  miracle;  if  miracle  is  a  slay  which 
one  perceives,  as  more  and  more  we  are  all  coin  ing 
to  perceive  it,  to  be  not  solid. 

Now,  it  may  look  at  first  sight  a  strange  thing  to 


THE  PROOF  FROM  MIRACLES.  14-9 

say,  but  it  is  a  truth  which  we  will  make  abundantly 
clear  as  we  go  on,  that  one  of  the  very  best  helps  to 
prepare  a  way  for  the  revelation  of  Christ  is  to  con- 
vince one's  self  of  the  liability  to  mistake  in  his  re- 
porters. Our  popular  theology  imagines  that  the 
Old  Testament  writers  were  miraculously  inspired, 
and  could  make  no  mistakes ;  that  the  New  Testament 
writers  were  miraculously  inspired,  and  could  make 
no  mistakes ;  and  that  there  this  miraculous  inspira- 
tion stopped,  and  all  writers  on  religion  have  been 
liable  to  make  mistakes  ever  since.  It  is  as  if  a  hand 
had  been  put  out  of  the  sky  presenting  us  with  the 
Bible,  and  the  rules  of  criticism  which  apply  to  other 
books  did  not  apply  to  the  Bible.  Now,  the  fatal 
thing  for  this  fancy  is,  that  its  owners  stab  it  to  the 
heart  the  moment  they  use  any  palliation  or  explain- 
ing away,  however  small,  of  the  literal  words  of  the 
Bible  ;  and  some  they  always  use.  For  instance,  it  is 
said  in  the  eighteenth  Psalm,  that  a  consuming 
fire  went  out  of  the  mouth  of  God,  so  that  coals  were 
kindled  at  it.  The  veriest  literalist  will  cry  out : 
Every  one  knows  that  this  is  not  to  be  taken  literally  ! 
The  truth  is,  even  he  knows  that  this  is  not  to  be 
taken  literally;  but  others  know  that  a  great  deal 
more  is  not  to  be  taken  literally.  He  knows  very 
little ;  but,  as  far  as  his  little  knowledge  goes,  he  gives 
up  his  theory,  which  is,  of  course,  palpably  hollow. 
For  indeed  it  is  only  by  applying  to  the  Bible  his 
criticism,  such  as  it  is,  that  any  man  makes  out  that 
criticism  does  not  apply  to  the  Bible. 

But  suppose  that  the  Bible  itself  put  forth  (which 


150  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

it  does  not)  this  theory,  and  made  its  own  value  all 
depend  on  the  truth  of  it,  then  the  result  would  be, 
at  the  best,  not  firmer  conviction,  but  utter  puzzle 
and  bewilderment.  Contradictions  would  meet  us, 
and  we  should  have  no  means  of  escape  from  them. 
There  would  grow  up  an  irresistible  sense  that  the 
belief  in  miracles  was  due  to  man's  want  of  experi- 
ence, to  his  ignorance,  agitation,  and  helplessness; 
and  yet  we  should  have  a  book,  which  we  felt  to  be 
precious,  purporting  to  be  put  out  of  the  sky,  to  be 
full  of  miracles,  and  to  depend  for  all  its  value  upon 
their  being  true.  Then  it  is  that  the  cry,  imposture ! 
would  more  and  more,  in  spite  of  all  we  could  do, 
gather  strength,  and  the  book  bo  thrown  aside  more 
and  more.  But  when  we  convince  ourselves  that,  in 
the  Xew  Testament  as  in  the  Old,  what  is  given  us 
is  words  thrown  out  at  an  immense  reality,  not  fully 
or  half  fully  grasped  by  the  writer,  but,  even  thus, 
able  to  affect  us  with  indescribable  force;  when  we 
convince  ourselves  that,  as  in  the  Old  Testament  we 
have  Israel's  inadequate  yet  inexhaustibly  fruitful 
testimony  to  "  the  Eternal  thai  makes  for  righteous- 
ness," so  we  have  in  the  Xew  Testament  a  report  in- 
adequate, indeed,  but  the  only  report  we  have  and 
therefore  priceless,  by  men,  some  more  able  and  clear, 
others  less  able  and  clear,  but  all  full  of  the  influ- 
ences of  their  time  and  condition,  partakers  of  some 
of  its  simple  or  its  learned  ignorance, — inevitably,  in 
fine,  expecting  miracles  and  demanding  them, — a  re- 
port, I  say,  by  these  men  of  that  immense  reality  not 
fully  or  half  fully  grasped  by  them,  the  mind  of 


THE  PROOF  FROM  MIRACLES.       151 

Christ;  then  we  shall  he  drawn  to  the  Gospels  with  a 
new  zest  and  as  by  a  fresh  spell.  We  shall  throw 
ourselves  upon  their  narratives  with  an  ardor  answer- 
ing to  the  value  of  the  pearl  of  great  price  they  hold, 
and  to  the  difficulty  of  reaching  it. 

So,  to  profit  fully  by  the  New  Testament,  the  first 
thing  to  be  done  is  to  make  it  perfectly  clear  to  one's 
self  that  its  reporters  both  could  err  and  did  err. 
For  a  plain  person,  an  incident  in  the  report  of  St. 
Paul's  conversion — which  comes  into  our  minds  the 
more  naturally  as  this  incident  has  been  turned 
against  something  wre  have  ourselves  said  * — would, 
one  would  think,  be  enough.  We  had  spoken  of  the 
notion  that  St.  Paul's  miraculous  vision  at  his  con- 
version proved  the  truth  of  his  doctrine.  We  related 
a  vision  which  converted  Sampson  Staniforth,  one  of 
the  early  Methodists ;  and  we  said  that  just  so  much 
proving  force,  and  no  more,  as  Sampson  Staniforth's 
vision  had  to  confirm  the  truth  of  anything  he  might 
afterwards  teach,  St.  Paul's  vision  had  to  establish 
his  subsequent  doctrine.  It  was  eagerly  rejoined 
that  Staniforth's  vision  was  but  a  fancy  of  his  own, 
whereas  the  reality  of  Paul's  was  proved  by  his  com- 
panions hearing  the  voice  that  spoke  to  him.  And 
so  in  one  place  of  the  Acts  we  are  told  they  did ;  but 
in  another  place  of  the  Acts  we  are  told  by  Paul  him- 
self just  the  contrary:  that  his  companions  did  not 
hoar  the  voice  that  spoke  to  him.  Need  we  say  that 
the  two  statements  have  been  "  reconciled  ?  "  They 
have,  over  and  over  again ;  but  by  one  of  those  pro- 
*  St.  Paul  and  Protestantism,  p.  54. 


152  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

cesses  which  are  the  opprobrium  of  our  Bible  criti- 
cism, and  by  which,  as  Bishop  Butler  says,  anything 
can  be  made  to  mean  anything.  There  is  between 
the  two  statements  a  contradiction  as  clear  as  can  be. 
The  contradiction  proves  nothing  against  the  good 
faith  of  the  reporter,  and  St.  Paul  undoubtedly  had 
his  vision;  he  had  it  as  Sampson  Staniforth  had  his. 
What  the  contradiction  proves  is,  the  incurable  loose- 
ness with  which  the  circumstances  of  what  is  called 
and  thought  a  miracle  are  related  ;  and  that  this  loose- 
ness the  Bible  relators  of  a  miracle  exhibit,  just  like 
other  people.  And  the  moral  is,  what  an  unsure 
stay,  then,  must  miracles  be ! 

But,  after  all,  that  there  is  here  any  contradiction 
or  mistake,  some  do  deny ;  so  let  vis  choose  a  case 
where  the  mistake  is  quite  undeniably  clear.  Such 
a  case  we  find  in  the  confident  expectation  and  asser- 
tion, on  the  part  of  the  New  Testament  writers,  of 
the  approaching  end  of  the  world.  Even  this  mis- 
take people  try  to  explain  away ;  but  it  is  so  palpable 
that  no  words  can  cloud  our  perception  of  it.  "  The 
time  is  short."  "  The  Lord  is  at  hand."  "  The  end 
of  all  things  is  at  hand."  "  Little  children,  it  is  the 
final  time."  "  The  Lord's  coming  is  at  hand ;  be- 
hold the  judge  standeth  before  the  door."  Nothing 
can  really  obscure  the  evidence  furnished  by  such 
sayings  as  these.  When  Paul  told  the  Thessaloniana 
that  they  and  he,  at  the  approaching  coming  »f 
Christ,  should  have  their  turn  after,  not  before,  the 

*  1  Cor.  vii.  20  ;  Philipp.  iv.  5  ;  1  Pet.  iv.  7  ;  1  John  ii.  18  ; 
James  v.  8.  9.  We  have  here  the  express  declarations  of  St. 
Paul,  St.  Peter,  St.  John,  and  St.  James. 


THE  PROOF  FROM  MIRACLES.       153 

faithful  dead :  "  For  the  Lord  himself  shall  descend 
from  heaven  with  a  shout,  with  the  voice  of  the  arch- 
angel and  with  the  trump  of  God,  and  the  dead  in 
Christ  shall  rise  first,  then  we  which  are  alive  and  re- 
main shall  be  caught  up  together  with  them  in  the 
clouds,  to  meet  the  Lord  in  the  air," — when  he  said 
this,  St.  Paul  was  simply  mistaken  in  his  notion  of 
what  was  going  to  happen.  This  is  as  clear  as  any- 
thing can  be. 

And  not  only  were  the  ISTew  Testament  writers  thus 
demonstrably  liable  to  commit,  like  other  men,  mis- 
takes in  fact;  they  were  also  demonstrably  liable  to 
commit  mistakes  in  argument.  As  before,  let  us 
take  a  case  which  wrill  be  manifest  and  palpable  to 
every  one.  St.  Paul,  arguing  to  the  Galatians  that 
salvation  was  not  by  the  Jewish  law  but  by  Jesus 
Christ,  proves  his  point  from  the  promise  to  Abra- 
ham having  been  made  to  him  and  his  seed,  not  seeds. 
The  words  are  not,  he  says,  "  to  seeds,  as  of  many, 
but  as  of  one ;  to  thy  seed,  which  is  Christ."  Xow, 
as  to  the  point  to  be  proved,  we  all  agree  with  St. 
Paul ;  but  his  argument  is  that  of  a  Jewish  Rabbi, 
and  is  clearly  both  fanciful  and  false.  The  writer 
in  Genesis  never  intended  to  draw  any  distinction  be- 
tween one  of  Abraham's  seed,  and  Abraham's  seed  in 
(/cncral.  And  even  if  he  had  expressly  meant,  wrhat 
Paul  says  he  did  not  mean,  Abraham's  seed  in  gen- 
eral, he  would  still  have  said  seed,  and  not  seeds. 
This  is  a  good  instance  to  take,  because  the  Apostle's 
substantial  doctrine  is  here  not  at  all  concerned.  As 
to  the  root  of  the  matter  in  question,  we  are  all  at  one 


LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

wirh  St.  Paul.  But  it  is  evident  how  he  could,  like 
the  rest  of  us,  bring  a  quite  false  argument  in  sup- 
port of  a  quite  true  thesis. 

And  the  use  of  prophecy  by  the  writers  of  the  Xew 
Testament  furnishes  really,  almost  at  every  turn  in- 
stances of  false  argument  of  the  same  kind.  Habit 
makes  us  so  lend  ourselves  to  their  way  of  speaking, 
that  nothing  checks  us ;  but,  the  moment  we  begin  to 
attend,  we  perceive  how  much  there  is  that  ought  to 
check  us.  Take  the  famous  allegation  of  the  parted 
clothes  but  lot-assigned  coat  of  Christ  as  fulfilment 
of  the  supposed  prophecy  in  the  Psalms :  "  They 
parted  my  garments  among  them,  and  for  my  vesture 
did  they  cast  lots."  The  words  of  the  Psalm  are 
taken  to  mean  contrast,  when  they  do  in  truth  moan 
identity.  According  to  the  rules  of  Hebrew  poetry, 
"'for  my  vesture  they  did  cast  lots  "  is  merely  a  repe- 
tition, in  different  words,  of  "  they  parted  my  gar- 
ments among  them,"  not  an  antithesis  to  it.  The  al- 
leged "  prophecy  "  is,  therefore,  due  to  a  dealing  with 
the  Psalmist's  words  which  is  arbitrary  and  erro- 
neous. So,  again,  to  call  the  words,  "  a  bone  of  him 
shall  not  be  broken,"  a  prophecy  of  Christ,  fulfilled 
by  his  legs  not  being  broken  on  the  cross,  is  evidently, 
the  moment  one  considers  it,  a  playing  with  words 
which  nowadays  we  should  account  childish.  For 
what  do  the  words,  taken  as  alone  words  can  ration- 
ally be  taken,  along  with  their  context,  really  proph- 
esy ?  The  entire  safety  of  the  righteous,  not  his 
death.  "  Many  are  the  troubles  of  the  righteous, 
but  the  Eternal  delivereth  him  out  of  all ;  he  keepeth 


THE  PROOF  FROM  MIRACLES.  155 

all  his  bones,  so  that  not  one  of  them  is  broken." 
Worse  words,  therefore,  conld  hardly  have  been 
chosen  from  the  Old  Testament  to  apply  in  that  con- 
nection where  they  come ;  for  they  are  really  contra- 
dicted by  the  death  of  Christ,  not  fulfilled  by  it. 

It  is  true,  this  verbal  and  unintelligent  use  of 
Scripture  is  just  what  was  to  be  expected  from  the 
circumstances  of  the  Xew  Testament  writers.  It 
was  inevitable  for  them;  it  was  the  sort  of  trifling 
which  then,  in  common  with  Jewish  theology,  passed 
for  grave  argument  and  made  a  serious  impression, 
as  it  has  in  common  Christian  theology  ever  since. 
But  this  does  not  make  it  the  less  really  trifling;  or 
hinder  one  nowadays  seeing  it  to  be  trifling,  directly 
we  examine  it.  The  mistake  made  will  strike  some 
people  more  forcibly  in  one  of  the  cases  cited,  some  in 
another,  but  in  one  or  another  of  the  cases  the  mis- 
take will  be  visible  to  everybody. 

Xow,  this  recognition  of  the  liability  of  the  Xe\v 
Testament  writers  to  make  mistakes,  both  of  fact  and 
of  argument,  will  certainly,  as  we  have  said,  more 
and  more  gain  strength,  and  spread  wider  and  wider. 
The  futility  of  their  mode  of  demonstration  from 
prophecy,  of  which  we  have  just  given  examples,  will 
be  more  and  more  felt.  The  fallibility  of  that  dem- 
onstration from  miracles  to  which  they  and  all  about 
them  attached  such  preponderating  weight,  which 
made  the  disciples  of  Jesus  believe  in  him,  which 
made  the  people  believe  in  him,  will  be  more  and 
more  recognized. 

Reverence  for  all,  who,  in  those  first  dubious  davs 


156  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

of  Christianity,  chose  the  better  part,  and  resolutely 
cast  in  their  lot  with  "  the  despised  and  rejected  of 
men !  "  Gratitude  to  all,  who,  while  the  tradition 
was  yet  fresh,  helped  by  their  writings  to  preserve 
and  set  clear  the  precious  record  of  the  words  and 
life  of  Jesus !  And  honor,  eternal  honor,  to  the  great 
and  profound  qualities  of  soul  and  mind  which  some 
of  these  writers  display!  But  the  writers  are  ad- 
mirable for  what  they  are,  not  for  what,  by  the  na- 
ture of  things,  they  could  not  be.  It  was  superiority 
enough  in  them  to  attach  themselves  firmly  to  Jesus ; 
to  feel  to  the  bottom  of  their  hearts  that  power  of 
his  words  which  alone  held  permanently, — held  when 
the  miracles,  in  which  the  multitude  believed  as  well 
as  they,  failed  to  hold.  The  good  faith  of  the  Bible 
writers  is  above  all  question ;  it  speaks  for  itself ;  and 
the  very  same  criticism,  which  shows  us  the  defects 
of  their  exegesis  and  of  their  demonstrations  from 
miracles,  establishes  their  good  faith.  But  this  could 
not,  and  did  not,  prevent  them  from  arguing  in  the 
methods  by  which  every  one  around  them  argued, 
and  from  expecting  miracles  where  everybody  else 
exj>ected  them. 

In  one  respect  alone  have  the  miracles  recorded 
by  them  a  more  real  ground  than  the  mas-  of  mira<-le- 
of  which  we  have  the  relation.  Medical  science  ha- 
never  gauged — never,  perhaps,  enough  set  it -elf  t<» 
gauge — the  intimate  connection  between  moral  fault 
and  disease.  To  what  extent,  or  in  how  many  c; 
what  is  called  illness  is  due  to  moral  springs  having 
Veen  used  amiss,  whether  by  being  over -u-ed  (.r  by 


THE  PROOF  FROM  Mil: A;  U-:s.  157 

not  being  used  sufficiently,  we  hardly  at  all  know,  and 
we  too  little  inquire.  Certainly  it  is  due  to  this 
very  much  more  than  we  commonly  think ;  and  the 
more  it  is  due  to  this,  the  more  do  moral  therapeutics 
rise  in  possibility  and  importance.*  The  bringer 
of  light  and  happiness,  the  calmer  and  pacifier  or  in- 
vigorator  and  stimulator,  is  one  of  the  chiefest  of 
doctors.  Such  a  doctor  was  Jesus ;  such  an  operator, 
by  an  efficacious  and  real  though  little  observed  and 
little  employed  agency,  upon  what  we,  in  the  language 
of  popular  superstition,  call  the  unclean  spirits,  but 
which  arc  to  be  designated  more  literally  and  more 
correctly  as  the  uncleared,  unpurified  spirits,  which 
came  raging  and  madding  before  him.  This  his  own 
language  shows,  if  we  know  how  to  read  it.  "  What 
does  it  matter  whether  I  say,  Thy  sins  are  forgiven 
thee !  or  whether  I  say,  Arise  and  walk  ?  "  And 
again:  "  Thou  art  made  whole;  sin  no  more,  lest  a 
worse  thing  befall  thcr."  1 1  is  reporters,  we  must  re- 
member, are  men  who  saw  thaumaturgy  in  all  that 
Jesus  did,  and  who  saw  in  all  sickness  and  disaster 
visitations  from  God,  and  they  bend  his  language  ac- 
cordingly. But  indications  enough  remain  to  show 

Ot/  O 

the  line  of  the  Master,  his  perception  of  the  large  part 
of  moral  cause  in  many  kinds  of  disease,  and  his 
method  of  addressing  to  this  part  his  cure. 

It  would  never  have  done,  indeed,  to  have  men  pro- 
nouncing right  and  left  that  this  and  that  was  a  judg- 
ment, and  how,  and  for  what,  and  on  whom ;  and  so, 

*  Consult  the  Charmides  of  Plato  (Chap.  V.)  for  a  remark- 
able account  of  the  theory  of  such  a  treatment,  attributed  by 
Socrates  to  Zamolxis,  the  god-king  of  the  Thrauians. 


158  LITERATURE  AND  Due  MA. 

when  the  disciples,  seeing  an  afflicted  person,  asked 
whether  this  man  had  done  sin  or  his  parents,  Jesus 
checked  them  and  said:  ''Neither  the  one  nor  the 
other,  but  that  the  works  of  God  might  be  made  mani- 
fest in  him."  Not  the  less  clear  is  his  own  belief 
in  the  moral  root  of  much  physical  disease,  and  in 
moral  therapeutics;  and  it  is  important  to  note  well 
the  branch  of  miracles  where  this  belief  comes  in. 
For  the  action  of  Jesus  in  these  cases,  however  it  may 
be  amplified  in  the  reports,  was  real;  but  it  is  not, 
therefore,  as  popular  religion  fancies,  thaumaturgy, 
— it  is  not  what  people  are  fond  of  calling  the  super- 
natural, but  what  is  better  called  the  non-natural.  It 
is,  on  the  contrary,  like  the  grace  of  Raphael,  or  the 
grand  style  of  Phidias,  eminently  natural;  but  it  is 
above  common  low-pitched  nature ;  it  is  a  line  of  na- 
ture not  yet  mastered  or  followed  out. 

Its  significance  as  a  guaranty  of  the  authenticity 
of  Christ's  mission  is  trivial,  however,  compared  with 
the  guaranty  furnished  by  his  sayings.  Its  im- 
portance is  in  its  necessary  effect  upon  the  beholders 
and  reporters.  This  element  of  what  was  really  won- 
derful, unprecedented,  and  unaccountable,  they  had 
actually  before  them ;  and  we  may  estimate  how  it 
must  have  helped  and  seemed  to  sanction  that  ten- 
dency which  in  any  case  would  have  carried  them, 
circumstanced  as  they  were,  to  find  all  the  perform- 
ances and  career  of  Jesus  miraculous. 

But,  except  for  this,  the  miracles  related  in  the 

•pels  will  appear  to  us  more  and  more,  the  more 

i -nr  experience  and  knowledge  increases,  to  have  but 


THE  PROOF  FROM  MIRACLES.       159 

the  same  ground  which  is  common  to  all  miracles,  the 
ground  indicated  by  Shakespeare;  to  have  been  gen- 
erated under  the  same  kind  of  conditions  as  other 
miracles,  and  to  follow  the  same  laws.  When  once 
the  "  Zeit-Geist "  has  made  us  entertain  the  notion 
of  this,  a  thousand  things  in  the  manner  of  relating 
will  strike  us  which  never  struck  us  before,  and  will 
make  us  wonder  how  we  could  ever  have  thought  dif- 
ferently. Discrepancies  which  we  now  labor  with 
such  honest  pains  and  by  such  astonishing  methods 
to  explain  away, — the  voice  at  Paul's  conversion, 
heard  by  the  bystanders  according  to  one  account,  not 
heard  by  them  according  to  another;  the  Holy  Dove 
at  Christ's  baptism,  visible  to  John  the  Baptist  in  one 
narrative,  in  two  others  to  Jesus  himself,  in  another, 
finally,  to  all  the  people  as  well ;  the  single  blind  man 
in  one  relation,  growing  into  two  blind  men  in  an- 
other; the  speaking  with  tongues,  according  to  St. 
Paul  a  sound  without  meaning,  according  to  the  Acts 
an  intelligent  and  intelligible  utterance, — all  this  will 
be  felt  to  require  really  no  explanation  at  all,  to  ex- 
plain itself,  to  be  natural  to  the  whole  class  of  inci- 
dents to  which  these  miracles  belong,  and  the  inev- 
itable result  of  the  looseness  with  which  the  stories 
of  them  arise  and  are  propagated. 

And  the  more  the  miraculousness  of  the  story 
deepens,  as  after  the  death  of  Jesus,  the  more  does 
the  texture  of  the  incidents  become  loose  and  floating, 
the  more  does  the  very  air  and  aspect  of  things  seem 
to  tell  us  we  are  in  wonderland.  Jesus  after  his  res- 
urrection not  known  by  Mary  Magdalene,  taken  by 


160  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

her  for  the  gardener ;  not  known  by  the  two  disciples 
going  with  him  to  Emmaus  and  at  supper  with  him 
there ;  not  known  by  his  most  intimate  apostles  on  the 
borders  of  the  Sea  of  Galilee; — and  presently,  out 
of  these  vague  beginnings,  the  recognitions  getting 
asserted,  then  the  ocular  demonstrations,  the  supreme 
commissions,  the  ascension ; — one  hardly  knows 
which  of  the  two  to  call  the  most  evident  here,  the 
perfect  simplicity  and  good  faith  of  the  narrators, 
or  the  plainness  with  which  they  themselves  really 
say  to  us,  "  Behold  a  legend  growing  under  your 
eyes !  " 

And  suggestions  of  this  sort,  with  respect  to  the 
whole  miraculous  side  of  the  New  Testament,  will 
meet  us  at  every  turn;  we  do  but  give  a  sample  of 
them.  It  is  neither  our  wish  nor  our  design  to  ac- 
cumulate them,  to  marshal  them,  to  insist  upon  them, 
to  make  their  force  felt.  Let  those  who  desire  to 
keep  them  at  arms'  length  continue  to  do  so,  if  they 
can,  and  go  on  placing  the  sanction  of  the  Christian 
religion  in  its  miracles.  Our  point  is,  that  the  ob- 
jections to  miracles  do,  and  more  and  more  will, 
without  insistence,  without  attack,  without  contro- 
versy, make  their  own  force  felt;  and  that  the  sanc- 
tion of  Christianity,  if  Christianity  is  not  to  be  lost 
along  with  its  miracles,  must  be  found  elsewhere. 


CHAPTEK  VI. 

THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  RECORD. 

Now,  then,  will  be  perceived  the  bearing  and  grav- 
ity of  what  we  some  little  way  back  said,  that  the 
more  we  convince  ourselves  of  the  liability  of  the 
New  Testament  writers  to  mistake,  the  more  we 
really  bring  out  the  greatness  and  worth  of  the  New 
Testament.  For  the  New  Testament  exists  to  reveal 
Jesus,  not  to  establish  the  immunity  of  its  writers 
from  error.  Jesus  himself  is  not  a  New  Testament 
writer;  he  is  the  object  of  description  and  comment 
to  the  New  Testament  writers.  As  the  Old  Testa- 
ment speaks  about  the  Eternal  and  bears  an  inval- 
uable witness  to  him,  without  yet  ever  adequately  in 
words  defining  and  expressing  him ;  so,  and  even  yet 
ii K ire,  do  the  New  Testament  writers  speak  about 
Jesus  and  give  a  priceless  record  of  him,  without 
adequately  and  accurately  comprehending  him. 

They  are  altogether  on  another  plane  from  Jesus, 
and  their  mistakes  are  not  his.  It  is  not  Jesus  him- 
self who  relates  his  own  miracles  to  us;  who  tells  us 
of  his  own  apparition  after  his  death ;  who  alleges  his 
crucifixion  and  sufferings  as  a  fulfilment  of  the 
prophecy :  "  The  Eternal  keepeth  all  the  bones  of 
the  ri ali teems  so  that  not  one  of  them  is  broken  ;  "  who 
11  161 


1 02  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

proves  salvation  to  be  by  Christ  alone,  from  the  prom- 
ise to  Abraham  being  made  to  seed  in  the  singular 
number,  not  the  plural.  If,  therefore,  the  human 
mind  is  now  drawing  away  from  reliance  on  miracles, 
coming  to  perceive  the  community  of  character  which 
pervades  them  nil,  to  understand  their  natural  laws, 
so  to  speak, — their  loose  mode  of  origination  and 
their  untrustworthiness, — and  is  inclined  rather  t<> 
distrust  the  dealer  in  thorn  than  to  pin  its  faith  upon 
him;  then  it  is  good  for  the  authority  of  Jesus,  that 
his  reporters  are  evidently  liable  to  ignorance  and 
error.  Tic  is  reported  to  deal  in  miracles,  to  he  above 
all  a  thaumaturgist.  But  the  more  his  reporters  were 
intellectually  men  of  their  nation  and  time,  and  of 
its  current  beliefs, — the  more,  that  is,  they  were  open 
to  mistakes, — the  more  certain  they  were  to  impute 
miracles  to  a  wonderful  and  half-understood  person- 
age like  Jesus,  whether  he  would  or  no.  lie  himself 
may,  at  the  same  time,  have  had  quite  other  notions 
as  to  what  he  was  doing  and  intending. 

Again,  the  mistake  of  imagining  that  the  world 
was  to  end,  as  St.  Paul  announces,  within  the  life- 
time of  the  first  Christian  generation,  is  now  palpa- 
ble. The  reporters  of  Jesus  make  him  announcing 
just  the  same  thing:  "  This  generation  shall  not  pass 
away  till  they  shall  see  the  Son  of  Man  coining  in  the 
clouds  with  great  power  and  glory,  and  then  shall  he 
send  his  angels  and  gather  his  elect  from  the  four 
winds."  Popular  theology  can  put  a  plain  satis- 
factory sense  upon  this,  but,  as  usual,  through  that, 
process  described  by  Hutler  by  which  anything  can 


THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  RECORD.  1C3 

be  made  to  mean  anything;  and  from  this  sort  of 
process  the  human  mind  is  beginning  to  shrink.  A 
more  plausible  theology  will  say  that  the  words  are 
an  accommodation ;  that  the  speaker  lends  himself  to 
the  fancies  and  expectations  of  his  hearers.  A  good 
deal  of  such  accommodation  there  is  in  this  and  other 
sayings  of  Jesus;  but  accommodation  to  the  full  ex- 
tent here  supposed  would  surely  have  been  impossible. 
To  suppose  it,  is  most  violent  and  unsatisfactory. 
Either,  then,  the  words  were,  like  St.  Paul's  an- 
nouncement, a  mistake,  or  they  are  not  really  the 
very  words  Jesus  said,  just  as  he  said  them.  That 
is,  the  reporters  have  given  them  a  turn,  however 
slight,  a  tone  and  a  color,  to  make  them  comply  with 
a  fixed  idea  in  their  own  minds,  which  they  un- 
feignedly  believed  was  a  fixed  idea  with  Jesus  also. 
Xow,  the  more  we  regard  the  reporters  of  Jesus  as 
men  liable  to  err,  full  of  the  turbid  Jewish  fancies 
about  "  the  grand  consummation  "  which  were  then 
current,  the  easier  we  can  understand  these  men  in- 
evitably putting  their  own  eschatology  into  the  mouth 
of  Jesus,  when  they  had  to  report  his  discourse  about 
the  kingdom  of  God  and  the  troubles  in  store  for  the 
Jewish  nation,  and  the  less  need  have  we  to  make 
Jesus  a  copartner  in  their  eschatology. 

Again,  the  futility  of  such  demonstrations  from 
prophecy  as  those  of  which  we  have  given  examples, 
and  generally  of  all  that  Jewish  exegesis,  based  on  a 
mere  unintelligent  catching  at  the  letter  of  the  Old 
Testament,  isolated  from  its  context  and  real  mean- 
ing, of  which  the  Xew  Testament  writers  give  us  so 


164  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

much,  begins  to  disconcert  attentive  readers  of  the 
Bible  more  and  more,  and  to  be  felt  by  them  as  an 
embarrassment  to  the  cause  of  Jesus,  not  a  support. 
Well,  then,  it  is  good  for  the  authority  of  Jesus,  that 
those  who  establish  it  by  arguments  of  this  sort  should 
be  clearly  men  of  their  race  and  time,  not  above  its 
futile  methods  of  reasoning  and  demonstration.  The 
more  they  were  this,  and  the  more  they  were  sure 
to  mix  up  much  futile  logic  and  exegesis  with  their 
presentation  of  Jesus,  the  less  is  Jesus  himself  re- 
sponsible for  such  logic  and  exegesis,  or  at  all  depen- 
dent upon  it.  He  may  himself  have  rated  such  argu- 
mentation at  precisely  its  true  value,  and  have  based 
his  mission  and  authority  upon  no  grounds  but  solid 
ones.  Whether  he  did  so  or  not,  his  hearers  and  re- 
porters were  sure  to  base  it  on  their  own  fantastic 
grounds  also,  and  to  credit  Jesus  with  doing  the  same. 
In  short,  the  more  we  conceive  Jesus  as  almost  as 
much  over  the  heads  of  his  disciples  and  reporters  as 
he  is  over  the  heads  of  the  mass  of  so-called  Christian-^ 
now,  the  more  we  see  his  disciples  to  have  been,  as 
they  were,  men  raised  by  a  truer  moral  susceptivo- 
ness  above  their  countrymen,  but  in  intellectual  con- 
ceptions and  habits  much  on  a  par  with  them,  all  (lie 
more  do  we  make  room,  so  to  speak,  for  Jesus  to  l>c 
inconceivably  great  and  wonderful;  a>  wonderful  as 
anything  his  reporters  imagined  him  to  be,  though  in 
a  different  manner. 

2. 

We  make  room  for  him  to  be  this,  and  through  tin.- 


THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  RECORD.  165 

inadequate  reporting  of  his  followers  there  breaks 
and  shines,  and  will  more  and  more  break  and  shine 
the  more  the  matter  is  examined,  abundant  evidence 
that  he  was  this.  It  is  most  remarkable,  and  the  best 
proof  of  the  simplicity,  seriousness,  and  good  faith 
which  intercourse  with  Christ  inspired,  that  wit- 
nesses with  a  fixed  prepossession,  and  having  no  doubt 
at  all  as  to  the  interpretation  to  be  put  on  Christ's 
acts  and  career,  should  yet  admit  so  much  of  what 
makes  against  themselves  and  their  own  power  of  in- 
terpreting. For  them,  it  was  a  thing  beyond  all 
doubt  that  by  miracles  Christ  manifested  forth  his 
glory  and  induced  the  faithful  to  believe  in  him; 
yet  what  checks  to  this  paramount  and  all-governing 
belief  of  theirs  do  they  report  from  Christ  himself! 
Everybody  will  be  able  to  recall  such  checks,  al- 
though he  may  never  yet  have  been  accustomed  to 
consider  their  full  significance.  "  Except  ye  see 
signs  and  wonders,  ye  will  not  believe !  "  — as  much 
as  to  say :  "  Believe  on  right  grounds  you  cannot,  and 
you  must  needs  believe  on  wrong !  "  And  again : 
"  Believe  me  that  I  am  in  the  Father  and  the  Father 
in  me;  or  else  believe  for  the  very  works'  sake!" — 
as  much  as  to  say :  "  Acknowledge  me  on  the  ground 
of  my  healing  and  restoring  acts  being  miraculous,  if 
you  must ;  but  it  is  not  the  right  ground."  No,  not 
the  right  ground ;  and  when  Xicodemus  came,  and 
would  put  conversion  on  this  ground  ("  We  know 
that  thou  art  a  teacher  come  from  God,  for  no  one 
can  do  the  miracles  that  thou  doest  except  God  lye 
with  him"}  Jesus  rejoined:  "Verily,  verily,  I  say 


100  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

unto  thee,  except  a  man  be  born  from  above,  he  can- 
not see  the  kingdom  of  God !  "  thus  tacitly  changing 
his  disciple's  ground,  and  correcting  him.  Even  dis- 
tress and  impatience  at  this  false  ground  being  taken 
is  visible  sometimes:  "Jesus  yi-oancd  in  Ids  spirit 
and  said,  Why  doth  this  generation  ask  for  a  sign  \ 
Verily  I  say  unto  you,  there  shall  no  sign  be  given 
to  this  generation  !  "  Who  does  not  see  what  double 
and  treble  importance  these  checks  of  Jesus  to  the 
reliance  on  miracles  gain,  from  their  being  reported 
by  those  who  relied  on  miracles  devoutly?  Who 
does  not  see  what  a  clew  they  offer  as  to  the  real  mind 
of  Jesus  ?  To  convey  at  all  to  such  hearers  of  him 
that  there  was  any  objection  to  miracles,  his  own 
sense  of  the  objection  must  have  been  profound ;  and 
to  get  them,  who  neither  shared  nor  understood  it,  to 
repeat  it  a  few  times,  he  must  have  repeated  it  many 
times. 

Take,  again,  the  eschatology  of  the  disciples,  their 
notion  of  final  things  and  of  the  approaching  great 
judgment  and  end  of  the  world.  This  consisted 
mainly  in  a  literal  appropriation  of  the  apocalyptic 
pictures  of  the  Book  of  Daniel  and  the  Book  of 
Enoch,  and  a  transference  of  them  to  Christ  and  his 
kingdom.  It  is  not  surprising,  certainly,  that  men 
with  the  mental  range  of  their  time,  and  with  so  lit- 
tle flexibility  of  thought,  that,  when  Jesus  told  them 
to  beware  of  "  the  leaven  of  the  Pharisees,"  or  when 
he  called  himself  "  the  bread  of  life,"  and  said,  "  He 
that  eateth  me  shall  live  by  me!  "  they  stuck  hope- 
lessly fast  in  the  literal  meaning  of  the  words,  and 


THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  RECORD.  167 

were  accordingly  puzzled  or  else  offended  by  them, — 
it  is  not  surprising  that  those  men  should  have  been 
incapable  of  dealing  in  a  large  spirit  with  the  proph- 
ecies of  Daniel,  that  they  should  have  applied  them  to 
Christ  narrowly  and  literally,  and  should  therefore 
have  conceived  his  kingdom  unintelligently.  This 
is  not  remarkable;  what  is  remarkable  is,  that  they 
should  themselves  supply  us  with  their  Master's 
blame  of  their  too  literal  criticism,  his  famous  sen- 
tence :  u  The  kingdom  of  God  is  within  you  !  "  Such 
an  account  of  the  kingdom  of  God  has  more  right, 
even  if  recorded  only  once,  to  pass  with  us  for 
Christ's  own  account,  than  the  common  materializ- 
ing accounts,  if  repeated  twenty  times;  for  it  was 
manifestly  quite  foreign  to  the  disciples'  own  notions, 
and  they  could  never  have  invented  it.  Evidence  of 
the  same  kind,  again,  evidence  borne  by  the  reporters 
themselves  against  their  own  power  of  rightly  under- 
standing what  Christ,  on  this  topic  of  the  kingdom 
of  God  and  its  coming,  meant  to  say,  is  Christ's  warn- 
ing to  his  apostles,  that  the  subject  of  final  things  was 
one  where  they  were  all  out  of  their  depth :  "  It  is 
not  for  you  to  know  the  times  and  the  seasons  which 
the  Father  hath  put  in  his  own  power." 

So,  too,  with  the  use  of  prophecy  and  of  the  Old 
Testament  generally.  A  very  small  experience  of 
Jewish  exegesis  will  convince  us  that,  in  the  disciples, 
their  catching  at  the  letter  of  the  Scriptures,  and  mis- 
taking this  play  with  words  for  serious  argument, 
was  nothing  extraordinary.  The  extraordinary  thing 
is  that.  Jesus,  even  in  the  report  of  these  critics,  uses 


168  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

Scripture  in  a  totally  different  manner;  he  wields 
it  as  an  instrument  of  which  he  truly  possesses  the 
use.  Either  he  puts  prophecy  into  act,  and  by  the 
startling  point  thus  made  he  engages  the  popular 
imagination  on  his  side,  makes  the  popular  familiar- 
ity with  prophecy  serve  him;  as  when  he  rides  into 
Jerusalem  on  an  ass,  or  clears  the  Temple  of  buyers 
and  sellers.  Or  else  he  applies  Scripture  in  what 
is  called  "  a  superior  spirit,"  to  make  it  yield  to  nar- 
row-minded hearers  a  lesson  of  wisdom;  as,  for  in- 
stance, to  rebuke  a  superstitious  observance  of  the 
Sabbath,  he  employs  the  incident  of  David's  taking 
the  shewbread.  His  reporters,  in  short,  are  the  ser- 
vants of  the  Scripture-letter,  Jesus  is  its  master :  and 
it  is  from  the  very  men,  who  were  servants  to  it  them- 
selves, that  we  learn  that  he  was  master  of  it.  IIo\v 
signal,  therefore,  must  this  mastery  have  been !  how 
eminently  and  strikingly  different  from  the  treat- 
ment known  and  practised  by  the  disciples  them- 
selves! 

Finally,  for  the  reporters  of  Jesus  the  rule  was, 
undoubtedly,  that  men  "  believed  on  Jesus  irltrn  they 
saw  the  miracles  which  he  did."  'Miracles  were  in 
these  reporters'  eyes,  beyond  question,  the  evidence  of 
tin-  Christian  religion.  And  yet  these  same  reporters 
indicate  another  and  a  totally  different  evidence  of- 
fered for  the  Christian  religion  by  Jesus  himself. 
"Everyone  that  heareth  and  learneth  from  the  Father 
cometh  unto  inc.  As  the  Father  hath  taught  me,  so 
I  speak;  he  that  is  of  God  heareth  the  words  of  G<><1 ; 
if  God  was  your  Father,  ye  would  have  loved  me!  " 


THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  RECORD. 

This  is  inward  evidence,  direct  evidence.  From  that 
previous  knowledge  of  God,  as  "  the  Eternal  that  lov- 
eth  righteousness,"  which  Israel  possessed,  the 
hearers  of  Jesus  could  and  should  have  concluded 
irresistibly,  when  they  heard  his  words,  that  he  came 
from  God.  Now,  miracles  are  outward  evidence,  in- 
direct evidence,  not  conclusive  in  this  fashion.  To 
walk  on  the  sea  cannot  really  prove  a  man  to  proceed 
from  the  Eternal  that  loveth  righteousness ;  although 
undoubtedly,  as  we  have  said,  a  man  who  walks  on 
the  sea  will  be  able  to  make  the  mass  of  mankind  be- 
lieve about  him  anything  he  chooses  to  say.  But 
there  is,  after  all,  no  necessary  connection  between 
walking  on  the  sea  and  proceeding  from  the  Eternal 
that  loveth  righteousness.  Jesus  propounds,  on  the 
other  hand,  an  evidence  of  which  the  whole  force  lies 
in  the  necessary  connection  between  the  proving  mat- 
tor  and  the  power  that  makes  for  righteousness.  This 
is  It  is  evidence  for  the  Christian  religion. 

His  disciples  experienced  the  evidence,  indeed. 
Peter's  answer  to  the  question  "  Will  ye  also  go 
away?" — "To  whom  should  we  go?  thou  hast  the 
irords  of  eternal  life!"  proves  it.  But  experiencing 
a  thing  is  very  different  from  understanding  and  pos- 
sessing it.  The  evidence,  which  the  disciples  were 
conscious  of  understanding  and  possessing,  was  the 
evidence  from  miracles.  And  yet,  in  their  report, 
Jesus  is  plainly  shown  to  us  insisting  on  a  different 
evidence,  an  internal  one.  The  character  of  the  re- 
porters gives  to  this  indication  a  paramount  im- 
portance. That  they  should  indicate  this  internal 


170  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

evidence  once,  as  the  evidence  on  which  Jesus  in- 
sisted, is  more  significant,  we  repeat,  than  their  in- 
dicating, twenty  times,  the  evidence  from  miracles 
as  the  evidence  naturally  convincing  to  mankind  and 
recommended,  as  they  thought,  by  Jesus.  The  no- 
tion of  the  one  evidence  they  would  have  of  them- 
selves; the  notion  of  the  other  they  could  only  get 
from  a  superior  mind.  This  mind  must  have  been 
full  of  it  to  make  them  feel  it  at  all ;  and  their  exhi- 
bition of  it,  even  then,  must  of  necessity  be  inade- 
quate and  broken. 

But  is  it  possible  to  overrate  the  value  of  the 
ground  thus  gained  for  showing  the  riches  of  the 
Xew  Testament  to  those  who,  sick  of  the  popular 
arguments  from  prophecy,  sick  of  the  popular  argu- 
ments from  miracles,  are  for  casting  the  New  Testa- 
ment aside  altogether?  The  book  contains  all  that 
we  know  of  a  wonderful  spirit,  far  above  the  heads  of 
his  reporters,  still  farther  above  the  head  of  our 
popular  theology,  which  has  added  its  own  misun- 
derstanding of  the  reporters  to  the  reporters'  misun- 
derstanding of  Jesus.  And  it  was  quite  inevitable 
that  anything  so  snj>erior  and  so  profound  should  be 
imperfectly  understood  l,v  those  amongst  whom  it 
first  appeared,  and  for  a  very  long  time  afterwards; 
and  that  it  should  come  at  la.-t  L-radnally  to  stand  out 
clearer  only  by  time, — "  Time,"  as  the  Greek  maxim 
says,  "  the  wisest  of  all  things  for  he  i<  the  unfailing 
discoverer." 

Yet.  however  much  is  discovered,  the  object  of  our 
scrutiny  must  still  be  beyond  us,  must  still  transcend 


THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  RECORD.  ]7t 

our  adequate  knowledge,  if  for  no  other  reason,  be- 
cause of  the  character  of  the  first  and  only  records 
of  him.  But  in  the  view  now  taken  we  have — even 
at  the  point  to  which  we  have  already  come — at  least 
a  wonderful  figure  transcending  his  time,  transcend- 
ing his  disciples,  attaching  them  but  transcending 
them ;  in  very  much  that  he  uttered  going  far  above 
their  heads,  treating  Scripture  and  prophecy  like  a 
master  while  they  treated  it  like  children,  resting 
his  doctrine  on  internal  evidence  while  they  rested 
it  on  miracles ;  and  yet,  by  his  incomparable  lucidity 
and  penetrativeness,  planting  his  profound  veins  of 
thought  in  their  memory  along  with  their  own  no- 
tions and  prepossessions,  to  come  out  all  mixed  up 
together,  but  still  distinguishable  one  day  and  separa- 
ble ; — and  leaving  his  word  thus  to  bear  fruit  for  the 
future. 

3. 

Surely  to  follow  and  extract  these  veins  of  true  ore 
is  a  wise  man's  business ;  not  to  let  them  lie  neglected 
and  unused,  because  the  beds  where  they  are  found 
are  not  all  of  the  same  quality  with  them.  The 
beds  are  invaluable  because  they  contain  the  ore ; 
and,  though  the  search  for  it  in  them  is  undoubtedly 
a  grave  and  difficult  quest,  yet  it  is  not  a  quest  of  the 
elaborate  and  endless  kind  that  it  will  at  first,  per- 
haps,  be  fancied  to  be.  It  is  a  quest  with  this  for  its 
governing  idea :  "  Jesus  was  over  the  heads  of  hi? 
reporters;  what,  therefore,  in  the  report  of  him,  is 
Jesus',  and  what  is  the  reporters'  1 " 


172  LITERATURE  AND  DC  GM A. 

Now,  this  excludes  as  unessential  much  of  the  crit- 
icism which  is  bestowed  on  the  New  Testament,  and 
gives  a  sure  point  of  view  for  the  remainder.  And 
what  it  excludes  is  those  questions  as  to  the  exact  date. 
the  real  authorship,  the  first  publication,  the  rank  of 
priority,  of  the  Gospels; — questions  which  have  a 
great  attraction  for  critics,  which  are  in  themselve- 
good  to  be  entertained,  which  lead  to  much  close  and 
fruitful  observation  of  the  texts,  and  in  which  very 
high  ingenuity  may  be  shown  and  very  great  plan.-i 
bility  reached,  but  not  more ; — they  cannot  be  really 
settled,  the  data  are  insufficient.  And  for  our  pur- 
pose they  are  not  essential.  Neither  is  it  essential 
for  our  purpose  to  get  at  the  very  primitive  text  of 
the  New  Testament  writers,  deeply  interesting  and 
deeply  important  as  this  is.  The  changes  that  have 
befallen  the  text  show,  no  doubt,  the  constant  ten- 
dency of  popular  Christianity  to  add  to  the  element 
of  theurgy  and  thaumaturgy,  to  increase  and  develop 
it.  To  clear  the  text  of  these  will  show  the  New  Tes- 
tament writers  to  have  been  less  preoccupied  with  this 
tendency,  and  is,  so  far,  very  instructive.  But  it 
will  not,  by  re-establishing  the  real  words  of  the 
writers,  necessarily  give  the  real  truth  as  to  Christ's 
religion;  because  to  the  writers  themselves  this  re- 
ligion was,  in  a  considerable  Degree  certainly,  a 
theurgy  and  a  thaumaturgy,  although  not  in  the  me- 
chanical and  extravagant  way  that  it  is  in  our  present 
popular  theology. 

For  instance :  the  famous  text  of  the  three  heavenly 
witnesses  is  an  imposture,  and  an  extravagant  one. 


THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  RECORD.  173 

It  shows  us,  no  doubt,  theologians  like  the  Bishop  of 
Gloucester  already  at  work, — men  with  more  meta- 
physics than  literary  tact,  full  of  the  Aryan  genius, 
of  the  notion  that  religion  is  a  metaphysical  concep- 
tion ;  anxious  to  do  something  for  the  thesis  of  "  the 
Godhead  of  the  Eternal  Son,"  or  of  "  the  blessed 
truth  that  the  God  of  the  universe  is  a  person," — 
or,  as  the  Bishop  of  Gloucester  writes  it,  "  Person," — 
and  so  on.  But  something  of  the  same  intention  is 
unquestionably  visible, — never,  indeed,  in  Jesus,  but 
in  the  author  of  the  Fourth  Gospel.  Much  of  the 
conversation  with  Xicodemus  is  a  proof  of  it ;  the 
46th  verse  of  the  6th  chapter  is  a  signal  proof  of  it. 
One  can  there  almost  see  the  author,  after  recording 
Christ's  words,  "  Every  one  that  heareth  and  learneth 
of  the  Father  cometh  unto  me,"  take  alarm  at  the  no- 
tion that  this  looks  too  downright  and  natural,  and, 
sincerely  persuaded  that  he  "  did  something  "  for  the 
honor  of  Jesus  by  making  him  more  abstract,  bring 
in  and  put  into  the  mouth  of  Jesus  the  46th  verse: 
"  Xot  that  any  one  hath  seen  the  Father,  except  he 
that  is  from  God,  he  hath  seen  the  Father."  This 
verse  has  neither  rhyme  nor  reason  where  it  stands 
in  Christ's  discourse;  it  jars  with  the  words  which 
precede  and  follow,  and  is  in  quite  another  vein  from 
them.  Yet  it  is  the  author's  own ;  it  is  no  interpola- 
tion. 

Again :  Socinians  lay  much  stress  on  the  probabil- 
ity that  in  the  first  words  of  St.  Mark's  Gospel,  "  The 
beginning  of  the  gospel  of  Jesus  Christ,  the  Son  of 
God,"  //(c  Son  of  God  is  an  interpolation.  And,  no 


174  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

doubt,  if  the  words  are  an  interpolation,  this  shows 
that  the  desire  to  prove  the  dogma  of  Christ's  God- 
head was  not  so  painfully  ever-present  to  the  writer 
of  the  Second  Gospel  as  it  became  to  later  theologians. 
But  it  shows  no  more;  it  does  not  show  that  he  had 
the  least  doubt  about  Jesus  being  the  Son  of  God. 
Ten  verses  later,  in  an  undisputed  passage,  he  calls 
him  so. 

Again,  in  the  last  chapter  of  the  same  Gospel,  all 
that  follows  the  eighth  verse — all  the  account  of 
Christ's  resurrection  and  ascension — is  probably  an 
addition  by  a  later  hand.  But  the  resurrection  i- 
plainly  indicated  in  the  first  eight  verses;  and  that 
the  writer  of  the  Second  Gospel  stops  after  the  eighth 
verse  proves  rather  that  he  was  writing  briefly  than 
that  he  did  not  believe  in  the  resurrection  and  ascen- 
sion as  much  as,  for  instance,  the  writer  of  the  Third 
Gospel;  unless,  indeed,  there  are  other  signs  (for  ex- 
ample, in  his  way  of  relating  such  an  incident  as  the 
Transfiguration)  to  show  that  he  was  suspicious  of 
the  preternatural.  But  there  are  none;  and  he 
plainly  was  not,  and  could  not  have  been. 

Again:  it  seems  impossible  that  the  very  primitive 
original  of  the  First  Gospel  should  have  made  J< 
say  that  "  the  sign  of  Jonas  "  consisted  in  his  being 
three  days  and  three  nights  in  the  whale's  belly,  as 
the  Son  of  Man  was  to  be  a  like  time  in  the  heart  of 
the  earth.  It  spoils  the  argument,  and  in  another 
place  the  argument  is  given  simply  and  rightly. 
Jonas  was  a  sign  to  the  Jews,  because  the  Xinevites 
repented  at  his  preaching  and  p  greater  than  Jonas 


THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  RECORD.  175 

stood  now  preaching  to  the  Jews.  But  whether  the 
words  are  genuine  (and  there  seems  no  evidence  to  the 
contrary)  in  that  particular  place  or  not,  to  get  rid 
of  them  brings  us  really  but  a  very  little  way,  when  it 
is  plain  that  their  argument  is  exactly  one  which  the 
evangelists  would  be  disposed  to  use,  and  to  think  that 
Jesus  meant  to  use.  For  so  they  make  him  to  have 
said,  for  instance :  "  Destroy  this  temple,  and  in 
three  days  I  will  raise  it  up !  "  in  prediction  of  his 
own  death  and  resurrection. 

In  short,  to  know  accurately  the  history  of  our 
documents  is  impossible,  and  even  if  it  were  possible, 
we  should  yet  not  know  accurately  what  Jesus  said 
and  did ;  for  his  reporters  were  incapable  of  render- 
ing it,  he  was  so  much  above  them.  This  is  the  im- 
portant thing  to  get  clearly  fixed  in  our  minds.  And 
the  more  it  becomes  established  to  us,  the  more  we 
shall  see  the  futility  of  what  is  called  rationalism, 
and  the  rationalistic  treatment  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment ; — of  the  endeavor,  that  is,  to  reduce  all  the  su- 
pernatural in  it  to  real  events,  much  resembling  what 
is  related,  which  have  got  a  little  magnified  and  col- 
ored by  being  seen  through  the  eyes  of  men  having 
certain  prepossessions,  but  may  easily  be  brought  back 
to  their  true  proportirms  and  made  historical  and 
reasonable.  A  famous  specimen  of  this  kind  of  treat- 
ment is  Schleiermacher's  fancy  of  the  death  on  the 
cross  having  been  a  swoon,  and  the  resurrection  of 
Jesus  a  recovery  from  this  swoon.  Victorious  in- 
deed, whatever  may  be  in  other  ways  his  own  short- 
comings, is  Dr.  Strauss's  demolition  of  this  error  of 


170  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

Schleiermacher's !  Like  the  rationalistic  treatment 
of  Scripture  throughout,  it  makes  far  more  difficulties 
than  it  solves,  and  rests  on  too  narrow  a  conception  of 
the  history  of  the  human  mind,  and  of  its  diversities 
of  operation  and  production.  It  puts  ourselves  in 
the  original  disciples'  place,  imagines  the  original 
disciples  to  have  been  men  rational  in  our  sense  and 
way,  and  then  explains  their  record  as  it  might  be 
made  explicable  if  it  were  ours.  And  it  may  safely 
be  said  that  in  this  fashion  it  is  not  explicable.  Im- 
aginations so  little  creative  and  with  so  substantial 
a  framework  of  fact  for  each  of  their  wonderful 
stories  as  this  theory  assumes,  would  never  have 
created  so  much  as  they  did ;  at  least,  they  could  not 
have  done  so  and  retained  their  manifest  simplicity 
and  good  faith.  They  must  have  fallen,  we  in  like 
case  should  fall,  into  arrangement  and  artifice. 

But  the  original  disciples  were  not  men  rational 
in  our  sense  and  way.  The  real  wonderfulaess  of 
Jesus,  and  their  belief  in  him,  being  given,  they 
needed  no  such  full  and  parallel  body  of  fact  for 
each  miracle  as  we  suppose.  Some  hints  and  help  of 
fact,  undoubtedly,  there  always  was,  and  we  naturally 
seek  to  explore  it.  Sometimes  our  guesses  may  be 
right,  sometimes  wrong,  but  we  can  never  be  sure, 
the  range  of  possibility  is  so  wide;  and  we  may  easily 
make  them  too  elaborate.  Shakespeare's  explanation 
is  far  the  soundest : — 


"  No  natural  exhalation  in  the  sky. 
No  scape  of  nature,  no  distemper'd  day, 
No  common  wind,  no  custonn-d 


THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  RECORD.  177 

But  they  will  pluck  away  his  natural  cause, 
And  call  them  meteors,  prodigies,  and  signs, 
Abortives,  presages,  and  tongues  of  heaven." 

And  it  must  be  remembered,  moreover,  that  of 
none  of  these  recorders  have  we,  probably,  the  very 
original  record.  The  record,  when  we  first  get  it, 
has  passed  through  at  least  half  a  century,  or  more, 
of  oral  tradition,  and  through  more  than  one  written 
account.  Miraculous  incidents  swell  and  grow  apace ; 
they  are  just  the  elements  of  a  tradition  that  swell 
and  grow  most.  These  incidents,  therefore,  in  the 
history  of  Jesus,  the  preternatural  things  he  did,  the 
preternatural  things  that  befell  him,  are  just  the 
parts  of  the  record  which  are  least  solid.  Beyond 
the  historic  outline  of  the  life  of  Jesus, — his  Galilean 
origin,  his  preaching  in  Galilee,  his  preaching  in 
Jerusalem,  his  crucifixion, — much  the  firmest  ele- 
ment is  the  record  of  his  words.  Happily  it  is  of 
these  that  he  himself  said :  "  The  words  that  I  speak 
unto  you,  they  are  spirit  and  they  are  life."  But  in 
reading  them,  we  have  still  to  bear  in  mind  our  gov- 
erning idea,  that  they  are  words  of  one  "  inadequately 
comprehended  by  his  hearers,"  men  though  these  be 
of  pureness  of  heart,  discernment  to  know  and  love 
the  good,  perfect  uprightness  of  intention,  faithful 
simplicity. 

What  they  will  have  reported  best,  probably,  is  dis- 
course where  there  was  the  framework  of  a  story  and 
its  application  to  guide  them, — discourse  such  as  the 
parables.  Instructive  and  beautiful  as  the  parables 
are,  however,  they  have  not  the  importance  of  the 

T2 


178  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

direct  teaching  of  Jesus.      But  in  his  direct  teach- 
ing we  are  on  the  surest  ground  in  single  sentence-, 
which    have    their    ineffaceable    and    unforgettable 
stamp:   "  My  yoke  is  kindly  and  my  burden  light;  " 
— "  Many  are  called,  few  chosen  ;  " — "'  They  that  are 
whole  need  not  a  physician,  but  they  that  are  sick;  " 
— "  Xo  man  having  put  his  hand  to  the  plough,  and 
looking  back,  is  fit  for  the  kingdom  of  God."      The 
longer  trains  of  discourse,  and  many  sayings  in  im- 
mediate connection  with  miracles,  present  much  more 
difficulty.      Probably  there  are  very  few  sayings  at- 
tributed to  Jesus  which  do  not  contain  what  he  on 
some  occasion  actually  said,   or  much  of  what   be 
actually  said.      But  the  connection,  the  juncture,  is 
plainly  often  missed ;  things  are  put  out  of  their  true 
place  and  order.     Failure  of  memory  would  occasion- 
ally cause  this  with  any  reporters ;  failure  of  com- 
prehension would  with  the  reporters  of  Jesus  fre- 
quently cause  it.      The  surrounding  tradition  insen- 
sibly biases  them,  their  love  of  miracles  biases  them. 
their  eschatology  biases  them.      All  these  three  e.v 
ercise  an  attraction  on  words  of  Jesus,   and   draw 
them  into  occasions,  placings,  and  turns  which 
not  exactly  theirs.      The  one  safe  guide  to  the  extri 
cation  and  right  reception  of  what  comes  from  Jt 
is  the  internal  evidence.     And  wherever  we  find  what 
enforces  this  evidence  or  builds  upon  it.   there  we 
may  be  especially  sure  that  we  are  on  the  trie 
Jesus;  because  turn  or  bias  in  this  direction  the  <!is 
ciples  were  more  likely  to  omit  from  his  discourse 


THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  RECORD.  179 

than  to  import  into  it,  they  were  themselves  so  wholly 
preoccupied  with  the  evidence  from  miracles. 


This  is  what  gives  such  eminency  and  value  to  the 
Fourth  Gospel.  The  confident  certainty  with  which 
Professor  Ewald  settles  the  authorship  of  this  gospel, 
and  assigns  it  to  St.  John,  is  an  exhibition  of  that 
learned  man's  weakness.  To  settle  the  authorship  is 
impossible,  the  data  are  insufficient ;  but  from  what 
data  we  have,  to  believe  that  the  gospel  is  St.  John's 
is  extremely  difficult.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  the 
stress  which  Professor  Ewald,  following  Luther,  lays 
on  this  gospel,  the  value  he  attributes  to  it,  is  an  ex- 
hibition of  his  power, — of  his  deep,  sure  feeling,  and 
true  insight,  in  the  essential  matters  of  religious  his- 
tory ;  and  of  his  superiority,  here,  to  the  best  of  his 
rivals,  Baur,  Dr.  Strauss,  M.  Kenan.  "  The  true 
evangelical  bread,"  says  Dr.  Strauss,  "  Christians 
have  always  gone  to  the  three  first  gospels  for !  "  But 
what  then  means  this  sentence  of  Luther,  who  stands 
as  such  a  good,  though  favorable,  representative  of 
ordinary  Christianity :  "  John's  gospel  is  the  one 
proper  chief-gospel,  and  far  to  be  preferred  to  the 
three  others  "  ?  Again,  M.  Kenan,  often  so  ingen- 
ious as  well  as  eloquent,  says  that  the  narrative  and 
incidents  in  the  Fourth  Gospel  are  probably  in  the 
main  historical,  the  discourses  invented !  Reverse 
the  proposition,  and  it  would  be  more  plausible !  The 
narrative,  so  meagre,  and  skipping  so  unaccountably 


180  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

backwards  and  forwards  between  Galilee  and  Jeru- 
salem, might  well  be  thought,  not  indeed  invented, 
but  a  matter  of  infinitely  little  care  and  attention  to 
the  writer  of  the  gospel,  a  mere  slight  framework  in 
which  to  set  the  doctrine  and  discourses  of  Jesus. 
The  doctrine  and  discourses  of  Jesus,  on  the  other 
hand,  cannot  in  the  main  be  the  writer's,  because  in 
the  main  they  are  clearly  out  of  his  reach. 

The  Fourth  Gospel  delights  the  heart  of  M.  Bur- 
nouf.  For  its  writer  shows,  M.  Burnouf  thinks, 
signal  traces  of  the  Aryan  genius,  has  much  to  favor 
the  notion  that  religion  is  a  metaphysical  conception, 
and  was  perhaps  even  capable,  with  time,  of  reaching 
the  grand  truth  that  God  is  a  cosmic  unity.  And 
undoubtedly  the  writer  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  seems 
to  have  come  in  contact,  in  Asia  or  Egypt,  with  Aryan 
metaphysics  whether  from  India  or  Greece;  and  to 
have  had  this  advantage,  whatever  it  was,  in  writing 
his  gospel.  But  who,  that  has  eyes  to  read,  cannot 
see  the  difference  between  the  places  in  his  gos]icl, 
such  as  the  introduction,  where  the  writer  speaks  in 
his  own  person,  and  the  places  where  Jesus  him-. 'If 
speaks?  The  moment  Jesus  speaks,  the  metaphys- 
ical apparatus  falls  away,  the  simple  intuit  ion  takes 
its  place;  and  wherever  in  the  discourse  of  Jesus  the 
metaphysical  apparatus  is  intruded,  it  jars  with  the 
context,  breaks  the  unity  of  the  discourse,  imparts  the 
thought,  and  comes  evidently  from  the  writer,  not 
Jesus.  It  may  seem  strange  and  incredible  to  M. 
Burnouf  that  metaphysics  should  not  always  confer 


THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  RECORD.      1*1 

the  superiority  upon  their  possessor;  but  such  is  the 
case. 

Who,  again,  cannot  understand  that  the  philosoph- 
ical acquirements  of  the  author  of  the  Fourth  Gospel, 
like  the  rabbinical  training  and  intellectual  activity 
of  Paul,  though  they  may  have  sometimes  led  each 
of  them  astray,  must  yet  have  given  each  of  them  a 
range  of  thought,  and  an  enlarged  mental  horizon, 
enabling  them  to  perceive  and  follow  ideas  of  Jesus 
which  escaped  the  ken  of  the  most  scantily  endowed 
authors  of  the  synoptical  gospels  ?  Plato  sophisti- 
cates somewhat  the  genuine  Socrates ;  but  it  is  very 
doubtful  whether  the  culture  and  mental  energy  of 
Plato  did  not  give  him  a  more  adequate  vision  of  the 
true  Socrates  than  Xenophon  had.  It  proves  noth- 
ing for  the  superiority  of  the  first  three  gospels  that 
their  authors  are  without  the  logic  of  Paul  and  the 
metaphysics  of  John  (by  this  commonly  received 
name  let  us  for  shortness's  sake  call  the  author  of 
the  Fourth  Gospel),  and  that  Jesus  also  was  without 
them.  Jesus  was  without  them  because  he  was 
above  them ;  the  authors  of  the  synoptical  gospels  be- 
cause they  were  (we  say  it  without  any  disrespect) 
below  them.  Therefore,  the  author  of  the  Fourth 
Gospel,  by  the  very  characters  which  make  him  in- 
ferior to  Jesus,  was  made  superior  to  the  three  synop- 
tics, and  better  able  than  they  to  seize  and  reproduce 
the  higher  teaching  of  Jesus. 

Does  it  follow,  then,  that  his  picture  of  Christ's 
teaching  can  have  been  his  own  invention  ?  By  no 
moans;  since  it  is  as  plainly  over  his  head  (at  that 


J.v;i  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

time  of  day  it  could  not  have  been  otherwise)  as  it  is 
over  theirs.  He  deals  in  miracles  as  confidingly  as 
they  do,  while  unconsciously  indicating,  far  more 
than  they  do,  that  the  evidence  of  miracles  is  super- 
seded. In  those  two  great  chapters,  the  fifth  and 
sixth,  where  Jesus  deals  with  the  topics  of  life,  death, 
and  judgment,  and  with  his  thesis,  "  He  that  eateth 
me  shall  live  by  me!  "  invaluable  and  full  of  light 
as  is  what  is  given,  the  eschatology  and  the  materializ- 
ing conceptions  of  the  writer  do  yet  evidently  inter- 
vene, as  they  did  with  all  the  disciples,  as  they  did 
with  the  Jews  in  general,  to  hinder  a  perfectly  faith- 
ful mirroring  of  the  thought  of  Jesus.  We  have  al- 
ready remarked  how  his  metaphysical  acquirements 
intervene  in  like  manner.  In  the  discourse  with 
Nicodemus  in  the  third  chapter,  from  the  thirteenth 
verse  to  the  end,  phrases  and  expressions  of  Jesus  of 
the  highest  worth  are  scattered ;  but  they  are  mani- 
festly set  in  a  short  theological  lecture  interposed  by 
the  writer  himself,  a  lecture  which  is,  as  a  whole, 
without  vital  connection  with  the  genuine  discourse  of 
Jesus,  and  needing  only  to  be  carefully  studied  side 
by  side  with  this  for  its  disparateness  to  become  ap- 
parent. 

But  a  failure  of  right  understanding,  which  will  be 
visible  to  every  one,  occurs  with  this  writer  in  his 
seventh  chapter.  Jesus,  with  a  reference  to  words 
of  the  prophet  Zechariah,  says :  "  He  that  believeth 
on  me,  as  the  Scripture  saith,  out  of  his  belly  shall 
flow  rivers  of  living  water."  The  thought  is  plain ; 
it  belongs  to  the  same  order  as  that  of  the  saying,  "  If 


THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  RECORD.  183 

any  thirst,  let  him  come  unto  me  and  drink;  "  or  of 
the  words  to  the  woman  of  Samaria,  "  If  thou  hadst 
known  the  gift  of  God,  and  who  it  is  that  talketh  with 
tlice,  thou  wouldst  have  asked  of  him  and  he  would 
have  given  thee  living  water."  It  means  that  a  man, 
receiving  Jesus,  finds  a  source  of  refreshment  for 
himself  and  becomes  a  source  of  refreshment  for 
others;  and  it  means  this  generally,  without  any 
limitation  to  a  special  time.  But  the  reporter  ex- 
plains :  "  Now  this  he  said  concerning  the  Spirit 
(Pneuma}  which  they  who  believed  on  him  should 
receive ;  for  Pneuma  was  not  yet,  because  Jesus  was 
not  yet  glorified."  A  clearer  instance  of  a  narrow 
and  mechanical  interpretation  of  a  great  and  free 
thought  can  hardly  be  imagined ;  and  the  words  of 
Jesus  himself  enable  us  here  to  control  the  inade- 
quacy of  the  interpretation,  and  to  make  it  palpable. 
So  that  the  superior  point  of  view  in  the  Fourth 
Gospel,  the  more  spiritual  treatment  of  things,  the 
insistence  on  internal  evidence,  not  external,  cannot, 
we  say,  be  the  writer's,  for  they  are  above  him ;  and 
while  his  gifts  and  acquirements  are  such  as  to  make 
him  report  them,  they  are  not  such  as  to  enable  him  to 
originate  them.  The  great  evidential  line  of  this 
gospel :  "  You  are  always  talking  about  God,  and 
about  your  founder  Abraham,  the  father  of  God's 
faithful  people;  here  is  a  man  who  says  nothing  of 
his  own  head,  who  tells  you  the  truth,  as  he  has  learnt 
it  of  God;  if  you  were  really  of  God  you  would  hear 
the  Avords  of  God  !  if  you  were  really  Abraham's  chil- 
dren YOU  would  follow  the  truth  like  Abraham !  " — 


1S4  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

this  simple  but  profound  line,  sending  Israel  back  to 
amend  its  conventional,  barren  notions  of  God,  of 
righteousness,  and  of  the  founders  of  its  religion,  lead- 
ing it  to  explore  them  afresh,  to  sound  them  deeper, 
to  gather  from  them  a  new  revelation  and  a  new 
life,  was,  we  say,  at  once  too  simple  and  too  profound 
for  the  author  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  to  have  invented. 
Our  endless  gratitude  is  due  to  him,  however,  for 
having  caught  and  preserved  so  much  of  it.  And  our 
business  is  to  keep  hold  of  the  clew  he  has  thus  given 
us,  and  to  use  it  as  well  as  possible. 


5. 


Truly,  then,  some  one  will  exclaim,  we  may  say 
with  the  "  Imitation  " :  "  Magna  ars  est  scire  con- 
rcrsari  cum  Jesu!  "  And  so  it  is.  To  extract  from 
his  reporters  the  true  Jesus  entire  is  even  impossible ; 
to  extract  him  in  considerable  part  is  one  of  the 
greatest  conceivable  tasks  of  criticism.  And  it  is 
vain  to  use  that  favorite  argument  of  popular  the- 
ology that  man  could  never  have  been  left  by  Provi- 
dence in  difficulty  and  obscurity  about  a  matter  of 
so  much  importance  to  him.  For  the  cardinal  rule 
of  our  present  inquiry  is  that  rule  of  Xewton's: 
Hypotheses  non  fingo;  and  this  argument  of  popular 
theology  rests  on  its  eternal  hypothesis  of  a  magnified 
and  non-natural  man  at  the  head  of  mankind's  ami 
the  world's  affairs.  And  a  further  answer  is,  that, 
as  to  the  argument  itself,  even  if  we  allowed  the 
hypothesis  yet  the  course  of  things,  so  far  as  we  can 


THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  RECORD.  185 

see,  is  not  so;  they  do  not  proceed  in  this  fashion. 
Because  a  man  has  frequently  to  make  sea-passages, 
he  is  not  gifted  with  an  immunity  from  sea-sickness ; 
because  a  thing  is  of  the  highest  interest  and  im- 
portance to  know,  it  is  not,  therefore,  easy  to  know; 
on  the  contrary,  in  general,  in  proportion  to  its  mag- 
nitude it  is  difficult  and  requires  time. 

But  the  right  commentary  on  the  sentence  of  the 
"  Imitation  "  is  given  by  the  "  Imitation  "  itself  in 
the  sentence  following :  "  Esto  humilis  et  pacificus, 
ct  crit  tecum  Jesm! "  What  men  could  take  at  the 
hands  of  Jesus,  what  they  could  use,  what  could  save 
them,  he  made  as  clear  as  light,  and  Christians  have 
never  been  able,  even  if  they  would,  to  miss  seeing  it. 
Xo,  never ;  but  still  they  have  superadded  to  it  a  vast. 
Aberglaube,  an  after  or  extra-belief  of  their  own; 
and  the  Aberglaube  has  pushed  on  one  side,  for  very 
many,  the  saving  doctrine  of  Jesus,  has  hindered  at- 
tention from  being  riveted  on  this  and  on  its  line  of 
growth  and  working,  has  nearly  effaced  it,  has  de- 
veloped all  sorts  of  faults  contrary  to  it.  This  Aber- 
(jlaube  has  sprung  out  of  a  false  criticism  of  the  lit- 
erary records  in  which  tho  doctrine  is  conveyed ;  what 
is  called  "  orthodox  divinity  "  is,  in  fact,  an  immense 
literary  misapprehension.  Having  caused  the  saving 
doctrines  enshrined  in  these  records  to  be  neglected, 
and  credited  the  records  with  existing  for  the  sake 
of  its  own  Aberglaitbe ,  this  blunder  now  threatens  to 
cause  the  records  themselves  to  bo  neglected  by  all 
those  (and  their  numbers  are  fast  increasing)  whom 
its  own  Abcrglaiibe  fills  with  impatience  and  aver- 


186  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

sion.  Therefore  it  is  needful  to  show  the  line  of 
growth  of  this  Aberglaube,  and  its  delusiveness;  to 
show  anew,  and  with  more  detail  than  we  have  ad- 
mitted hitherto,  the  line  of  growth  of  Christ's  doc- 
trine, and  the  far-reaching  sanctions,  the  inexhausti- 
ble attractiveness,  the  grace  and  truth,  with  which 
he  invested  it.  But  the  doctrine  itself  is  essentially 
simple;  and  what  is  difficult — the  literary  criticism 
of  the  documents  containing  the  doctrine — is  not  the 
doctrine. 

This  literary  criticism,  however,  is  extremely  dif- 
ficult. It  calls  into  play -the  highest  requisites  for 
the  study  of  letters; — great  and  wide  acquaintance 
with  the  history  of  the  human  mind,  knowledge  of  the 
manner  in  which  men  have  thought,  their  way  of 
using  words  and  what  they  mean  by  them,  delicacy 
of  perception  and  quick  tact,  and,  besides  all  these, 
a  favorable  moment  and  the  "  Zeit-Gcist."  And  vet 
every  one  among  us  criticises  the  Bible,  and  thinks 
it  is  of  the  essence  of  the  Bible  that  it  can  be  thus 
criticised  with  success !  And  the  Four  Gospels,  the 
part  of  the  Bible  to  which  this  sort  of  criticism  is 
most  applied  and  most  confidently,  are  just  the  part 
which  for  literary  criticism  is  infinitely  the  hardest, 
however  simple  they  may  look,  and  however  simple 
the  saving  doctrine  they  contain  really  is.  For 
Prophets  and  Epistlers  speak  for  themselves ;  but 
in  the  Four  Gospels  reporters  are  speaking  for  Jesus, 
who  is  far  above  them. 

Now,  we  all  know  what  the  literary  criticism  of 
the  mass  of  mankind  is.  To  be  worth  anything, 


THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  RECORD.  187 

literary  and  scientific  criticism  require,  both  of  them, 
the  finest  heads,  and  the  most  sure  tact ;  and  they  re- 
quire, besides,  that  the  world  and  the  world's  ex- 
perience shall  have  come  some  considerable  way. 
Now,  since  this  last  condition  has  been  fulfilled,  the 
finest  heads  for  letters  and  science,  the  surest  tact 
for  these,  have  turned  themselves  in  general  to  other 
regions  of  work  than  criticism  of  the  Bible,  this 
region  being  occupied  already  in  such  force  of  num- 
bers and  hands,  if  not  of  heads,  and  there  being  so 
many  annoyances  and  even  dangers  in  freely  ap- 
proaching it.  As  our  Reformers  were  to  Shakespean- 
and  Bacon  in  tact  for  letters  and  science,  or  jis 
Luther,  even,  was  to  Goethe  in  this  respect,  such  al- 
most has  on  the  whole  been,  since  the  Renascence,  the 
general  proportion  in  rate  of  power  for  criticism  be- 
tween those  who  have  given  themselves  to  secular  let- 
ters and  science,  and  those  who  have  given  themselves 
to  interpreting  the  Bible,  and  who,  in  con j unction 
with  the  popular  interpretation  of  it  both  traditional 
and  contemporary,  have  made  what  is  called  "  ortho- 
dox theology."  It  is  as  if  some  simple  and  saving 
doctrines,  essential  for  men  to  know,  were  enshrined 
in  Shakespeare's  "  Hamlet  "  or  !N"ewton's  "  Prin- 
cipia  "  (though  the  Gospels  are  really  a  far  more 
complex  and  difficult  object  of  criticism  than  either)  ; 
and  a  host  of  second-rate  critics,  and  official  critics, 
and  what  is  called  "  the  popular  mind  "  as  well, 
threw  themselves  upon  "  Hamlet  "  and  the  "  Prin- 
cipia  "  with  the  notion  that  they  could  and  should 
extract  from  these  documents,  and  impose  on  us  for 


188  LITERATURE  AND  DOCJMA. 

our  belief,  not  only  the  saving  doctrine?  enshrined 
there,  but  also  the  right  literary  and  scientific 
criticism  of  the  entire  documents.  A  pretty  mess 
they  would  make  of  it!  and  just  this  sort  of  mess  is 
our  so-called  orthodox  theology.  And  its  professors 
are  nevertheless  bold,  overweening,  and  even  abusive, 
in  maintaining  their  criticism  against  all  question- 
ers ;  although  really,  if  one  thinks  seriously  of  it,  it 
was  a  kind  of  impertinence  in  such  professors  to  at- 
tempt any  such  criticism  at  all. 

Happily,  the  faith  which  saves  is  attached  to  the 
saving  doctrines  in  the  Bible,  which  are  very  simple ; 
not  to  its  literary  and  scientific  criticism,  which  is 
very  hard.  And  no  man  is  to  be  called  "  infidel  "  f<>r 
his  bad  literary  and  scientific  criticism  of  the 
Bible;  but  if  he  were,  how  dreadful  would  the  state 
of  our  orthodox  theologians  be!  They  themselves 
freely  fling  about  this  word  infidel  at  all  those  who 
reject  their  literary  and  scientific  criticism,  which  we 
see  to  be  quite  false.  It  would  be  but  just  i«i  mete 
to  them  with  their  own  measure,  and  to  condemn 
them  by  their  own  rule;  and,  when  they  air  their  un- 
sound criticism  in  public,  to  say  indignantly :  "  The 
Bishop  of  So-and-so,  the  Dean  of  So-and-so,  ami  ntlier 
infidel  lecturers  of  the  present  day  !  "  or:  "  Thai  ram 
pant  infidel,  the  Archdeacon  of  So-and-so,  in  his  n 
cent  letter  on  the  Athanasian  Creed!"  or:  "  The 
Kock,'  l  The  Church  Times,'  and  the  rest  of  the  in- 
fidel press!"  or:  "The  torrent  of  infidelity  which 
pours  every  Sunday  from  our  pulpits!"  Just  it 
would  be,  and  by  no  means  inurbane;  but  hardly,  JXT- 


THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  UKCORD.  189 

haps,  Christian.  Therefore  we  will  not  permit  our- 
selves to  say  it ;  but  it  is  only  kind  to  point  out,  in 
passing,  to  these  loud  and  rash  people  to  what  they 
expose  themselves,  at  the  hands  of  adversaries  less 
scrupulous  than  we  are. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

THE  TESTIMONY  OF  JESUS  TO  HIMSELF. 

WE  have  said — and  it  cannot  be  repeated  too  often 
— that  what  is  called  orthodox  theology  is,  in  fact,  an 
immense  misunderstanding  of  the  Bible,  due  to  the 
junction  of  a  talent  for  abstruse  reasoning  with  much 
literary  inexperience.  It  cannot  be  repeated  too 
often ;  because  our  dogmatic  friends  seem  to  imagine 
that  the  truth  of  their  dogma  is  conceded  on  all  hands, 
and  that  the  only  objection  is  to  the  harsh  or  over- 
rigid  way  in  which  it  is  put.  Dr.  Pusey  and  the 
"  Church  Review  "  assume  that  what  the  Athanasian 
Creed,  for  instance,  does,  is  "  to  take  up  the  ad- 
mitted facts  of  Christian  faith,  and  arrange  them 
sentence  after  sentence ;  "  and  then  they  ask  us  why 
we  should  be  so  squeamish  about  "  letting  the  Prayer 
Book  contain  once,  at  least,  the  statement  that  Chris- 
tian faith  is  necessary  to  salvation."  Others  talk 
of  the  contest  going  on  between  "definite  religion." 
"  religion  with  the  sinew  and  bone  of  doctrine,"  ami 
"  indefinite  religion,"  "  nerveless  religion,"  "  vague, 
negative,  and  cloudy  religion ;  "  and  Lord  Salisbury, 
as  we  have  seen,  declares  that  "  religion  is  no  more  to 
be  severed  from  dogma  than  light  from  the  sun." 

To  be  sure,  to  make  this  maxim  of  Lord  Salis- 
190 


THE  TESTIMONY  OF  JESUS  TO  HIMSELF.       191 

bury's  go  on  all  fours,  it  ought  to  be:  "Religion  is 
no  more  be  severed  from  the  truth  of  religion  than 
light  from  the  sun."  And  dogma  and  the  truth  of 
religion  are  not  exactly  synonymes ;  dogma  means, 
not  necessarily  a  true  doctrine,  but  merely  a  doctrine 
or  system  of  doctrine  determined,  decreed,  and  re- 
ceived. Lord  Salisbury,  however,  takes  it  as  in  this 
case  another  word  for  truth,  and  so  do  the  other  speak- 
ers. And  they  accordingly  represent  their  opponents 
as  either  secret  enemies  of  the  truth  of  religion,  men 
who  are,  as  the  "  Rock  "  says  in  a  Biblical  figure  ad- 
dressed to  the  Dean  of  Westminster,  "  the  degenerate 
plant  of  a  strange  vine  bringing  forth  the  grapes  of 
Sodom  and  the  clusters  of  Gomorrah ;  "  or,  at  best, 
as  amiable,  soft-headed  people,  afraid  of  clear  thought 
and  plain  speech,  and  requiring  with  their  light  a 
very  unnecessary  dose  of  sweetness. 

We,  however,  try  to  keep  our  love  of  sweetness 
within  reasonable  bounds ;  and  the  "  Rock "  will 
hardly  call  us  a  Gomorrah  vine,  when  we  agree  to  say 
heartily  after  it,  as  we  do,  that  **'  Christian  faith  is 
necessary  to  salvation."  But  what  is  Christian 
faith  ?  Is  it  the  "  admitted  facts  taken  up  and  ar- 
ranged, sentence  after  sentence,  in  the  Athanasian 
Creed  ?  "  Are  these  facts  admitted  ? — the  whole 
question  is  here.  So  far  from  these  facts  being  ad- 
mitted, or  from  the  enumeration  of  them  being  the 
enumeration  of  the  facts  of  the  Christian  faith,  we 
say  that  they  are  deductions  from  the  Bible  of  mat- 
ters which  are  not  the  real  matters  of  Christian  faith 
at  all ;  and  that,  moreover,  they  are  false  deductions 


192  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

from  the  Bible,  blunders  arising  from  a  want  of  skill 
and  experience  in  dealing  with  a  very  complex  liter- 
ary problem. 

Therefore  we  can  honestly  tell  our  dogmatic 
friends  that  we  agree  with  them  in  disliking  an  in- 
definite religion,  in  preferring  a  definite  one.  Our 
quarrel  with  them  is,  not  that  they  define  religion, 
but  that  they  define  it  so  abominably.  And  to  the 
eloquent  and  impetuous  Chancellor  of  Oxford,  who 
cannot  away  with  a  hazy  amiability  in  religious  mat- 
ters, and  brandishes  before  us  his  dogma,  not  vague, 
he  says,  but  precise: — "  Precise  enough,"  we  answer, 
"  precisely  wrong!  "  And  having  thus,  we  hope,  put 
ourselves  right  with  our  adversaries  as  to  the  real 
question  between  us  and  them,  we  will  proceed  with 
our  endeavor  to  free  the  Bible, — by  showing  that  it 
is  not  metaphysics  but  literature,  by  following  it  con- 
tinuously and  by  interpreting  it  naturally, — to  free 
the  Bible  from  the  serious  dangers  with  which  their 
advocacy  threatens  it.  For  when  the  IJishops  of 
Winchester  and  Gloucester  talk  of  "  doing  soinethinu 
for  the  Godhead  of  the  Eternal  Son,"  they  are  doing 
nothing,  we  say,  for  the  Bible,  they  are  endanger- 
ing it.  For  their  notions  about  the  Godhead  of  the 
Eternal  Son,  and  what  it  is,  cannot  possibly  stand; 
and  yet  these  notions  they  have  drawn,  they  tell  us, 
from  the  Bible,  they  impute  them  to  the  I'.ible.  But 
they  have  drawn  them  wrongly,  and  the  Bible  is  to  be 
made  answerable  for  no  such  doctrine.  And  we  have 
now  come  to  that  point  where  we  may  see,  clearer 
than  we  were  in  a  position  to  see  before,  what  i~. 


THE   Ti.SiLMONY  OF  JESUS  TO   HIMSELF.     193 

rightly  to  be  drawn  from  the  Bible  on  this  matter, 
and  what  the  doctrine  of  Jesus  himself  about  his  own 
Godhead  really  is. 


2. 


Following  the  Bible  continuously  and  interpreting 
it  naturally,  we  saw  the  people  of  "  the  Eternal  that 
loveth  righteousness/'  and  that  "  blesseth  the  man 
that  putteth  his  trust  in  Him,"  we  saw  Israel,  con- 
founded and  perplexed  by  the  misfortunes  of  God's 
people  and  the  success  of  the  unrighteous  world,  con- 
struct a  vast  Abcrglaube,  an  after  or  extra-belief,  ac- 
cording to  which  there  should  come  about,  in  no  dis- 
tant future,  a  grand  and  wonderful  change.  God 
should  send  his  Messiah,  judge  the  world,  punish  the 
wicked,  and  restore  the  kingdom  to  Israel.  For 
Israel's  original  revelation  and  intuition  had  been : 
u  The  Eternal  loveth  righteousness;  to  him  that  or- 
dereth  his  conversation  right  shall  be  shown  the  sal- 
vation of  God."  And  the  natural  corollary  from  this 
was,  "  As  the  whirlwind  passeth,  so  is  the  wicked  no 
more;  but  the  righteous  is  an  everlasting  founda- 
tion." 

Both  the  revelation  and  the  corollary  from  it  were 
true ;  but  the  virtue  of  both,  for  Israel,  turned  upon 
knowing  what  righteousness  and  righteous  meant. 
And  this  indispensable  intuition  Israel  is  always  rep- 
resented as  having  once  had,  and  with  time  in  great 
measure  lost.  "  vStand  ye  in  the  ways  and  see,"  says 
Jeremiah,  "  and  ask  for  the  old  paths,  where  is  the 

13 


LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

good  way,  and  walk  therein,  and  ye  shall  find  rest  for 
your  souls."  The  prophets  may  be  seen  trying  to  re- 
awaken in  Israel  this  intuition,  by  inculcating  in- 
wardness, humbleness,  sincerity.  But  the  mass  of 
people  naturally  inclined  to  place  righteousness 
rather  in  something  mechanically  to  be  given  or  done, 
— in  being  endowed  with  the  character  of  God's 
chosen  people,  or  in  punctually  observing  a  law  full 
of  minute  observances.  And  the  promises  to  right- 
eousness they  in  like  manner  construed  as  promises 
of  things  material:  a  mighty  Jewish  kingdom,  God's 
people  reigning,  the  heathen  licking  the  dust. 

This  material  conception  of  the  promises  to  right- 
eousness fell  in  with  the  mechanical  conception  of 
righteousness  itself,  and  each  heightened  the  hurtful- 
ness  of  the  other.  Between  them  both,  a  type  of  soul 
more  and  more  hard,  impervious,  and  impracticable, 
was  formed  in  the  Jewish  people;  and  the  intuition. 
in  which  their  greatness  began,  died  out  more  and 
more.  There  still  remained  of  it  so  much  as  this: 
that  of  all  the  nations  of  the  world  they  were  the  only 
one  that  felt  the  all-importance  of  righteousness,  and 
the  eternity  of  the  promises  made  to  it.  But  wh:it 
righteousness  really  was  they  knew  not ;  and  their 
situation,  when  Christ  came,  is  admirably  summed  up 
in  these  two  verses  of  prophecy,  which  every  one  who 
wishes  for  a  clear  sense  of  the  Jews'  relations  with 
Christ  would  do  well  to  write  as  a  reminder  on  the 
blank  page  between  the  Old  Testament  and  the 
Xew: — 

"  Forasmuch  as  this  people  draw  near  me  with 


THE  TESTIMONY  OF  JESUS  TO  HIMSELF.      195 

their  month,  and  with  their  lips  do  honor  me,  but 
have  removed  their  heart  far  from  me,  and  their  fear 
towards  me  is  taught  by  the  precept  of  men ; 

"  Therefore,  behold,  I  will  proceed  to  do  a  marvel- 
lous work  among  this  people,  even  a  marvellous  work 
and  a  wonder ;  for  the  wisdom  of  their  wise  men  shall 
perish,  and  the  understanding  of  their  prudent  men 
shall  be  hid." 

Meanwhile,  the  Jews  were  full  of  their  Aber- 
glaube,  their  added  or  extra-belief  in  a  Messianic  ad- 
vent, a  great  judgment,  a  world-wide  reign  of  the 
saints ;  and  it  is  well  to  have  distinctly  before  us  the 
main  texts  which  they  had  gathered  from  the  Old 
Testament  in  support  of  this  belief,  and  which  were 
in  everybody's  mind  and  mouth.  They  are  all  given 
us  by  the  New  Testament.  Moses  had  said :  "  The 
Eternal  thy  God  will  raise  up  unto  thee  a  Prophet 
from  the  midst  of  thee,  of  thy  brethren,  like  unto 
me ;  unto  him  shall  ye  hearken."  In  the  Psalms  it 
was  written :  *'  The  Eternal  hath  sworn  a  faithful 
oath  unto  David :  Of  the  fruit  of  thy  body  will  I  set 
upon  thy  seat:  thy  seed  will  I  stablish  forever,  and 
set  up  thy  throne  from  one  generation  to  another." 
Isaiah  had  said :  "  There  shall  come  forth  a  Rod  out 
of  the  stem  of  Jesse  and  a  Branch  shall  grow  out  of 
his  roots;  and  the  Spirit  of  the  Eternal  shall  rest 
upon  him,  and  he  shall  smite  the  earth  with  the 
breath  of  his  mouth,  and  with  the  breath  of  his  lips 
shall  he  slay  the  wicked."  Finally,  Malachi,  the  last 
prophet,  had  announced  from  God :  "  Behold,  I  will 


196  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

send  you  Elijah  the  prophet  before  the  coming  of  the 
great  and  dreadful  day  of  the  Eternal." 

These  may  stand,  perhaps,  as  four  fundamental 
texts,  forming  the  ground  for  popular  Jewish  Aber- 
glaube  as  it  developed  itself;  and  it  will  be  seen  of 
what  large  and  loose  construction  they  admit.  But 
the  ground-plan  thus  given  was  filled  out  from  later 
and  inferior  scriptures,  full  of  the  spirit  of  the  time, 
grandiose,  but  turbid  and  phantasmagoric,  such  as  the 
Book  of  Enoch  and  the  Book  of  Daniel.  The  Book 
of  Daniel  is  in  our  Bibles;  we  can  all  verify  there 
the  elements  which  constituted,  when  Christ  came. 
the  popular  religious  hope  and  belief  of  the  Jews. 
It  may  be  hoped  that  we  ourselves,  most  of  us,  read 
other  parts  of  the  Bible  far  more  than  the  Book  of 
Daniel ;  but  we  know  how,  in  general,  those  who  use 
the  Bible  most  unintelligently  have  a  peculiar  fond- 
ness for  the  apocalyptic  and  phantasrtttgbrid  parts  of 
it.  The  Book  of  Daniel  gave  form  and  Imdy  t«>  the 
Prophet  of  Moses,  the  seed  of  David  of  the  Psalms. 
the  great  and  terrible  day  of  Malarhi;  it  enabled  tin- 
popular  imagination  to  see  and  figure  them.  "  A 
time  of  trouble  such  as  never  was  since  there  was  a 
nation  to  that  time!  The  Ancient  of  days  did  sit, 
whose  garment  was  white  as  snow  and  the  hair  of 
his  head  like  the  pure  wool;  his  throne  was  like  the 
fiery  flame;  the  judgment  was  set  and  the  books  wen- 
opened.  And  behold,  one  like  the  Son  of  Man  came 
with  the  clouds  of  heaven,  and  came  to  the  Ancient 
of  days,  and  there  was  given  him  dominion  and  glory, 
that  all  people,  nations,  and  languages  should  -erve 


THE  TESTIMONY  OF  JESUS  TO  HIMSELF.       107 

him;  his  dominion  is  an  everlasting  dominion  which 
shall  not  pass  away.  And  judgment  was  given  to 
the  saints  of  the  Most  High,  and  the  time  came  that 
the  saints  possessed  the  kingdom.  At  that  time  the 
people  of  God  shall  be  delivered,  every  one  that  shall 
be  found  written  in  the  book;  and  many  of  them  that 
sleep  in  dust  shall  awake,  some  to  everlasting  life, 
and  some  to  shame  and  everlasting  contempt." 

Other  figures  which  laid  hold  of  men's  memories 
the  Book  of  Enoch  supplied.  It  told  how,  in  the 
great  visitation :  "  They  shall  rise  up  to  destroy  one 
another,  neither  shall  a  man  acknowledge  his  friend 
and  his  brother,  nor  the  son  his  father  and  his 
mother ;  "  how :  "  Ye  shall  enter  into  the  holes  of  the 
earth  and  into  the  clefts  of  the  rocks ;  "  and  how, 
finally,  the  proud  rulers  of  the  world  "  shall  see  the 
Son  of  Man  sitting  on  the  throne  of  his  glory."  The 
Book  of  Enoch  described  this  Son  of  Man,  also,  as 
"  The  Son  of  Man,  living  with  the  Lord  of  Spirits." 
"  The  Elect  One,  whom  the  Lord  of  Spirits  hath 
gifted  and  glorified."  Both  books  gave  him  the  name 
of  "  Son  of  God  "  and  of  "  Messiah." 

It  was  of  all  this  that  the  heart  of  the  Jews  was  full 
when  Christ  came ;  it  was  on  this  that  their  thoughts 
fed  and  their  hopes  brooded.  The  old  words,  God, 
the  Eternal,  the  Father,  the  Redeemer,  were  perpet- 
ually in  their  mouths;  but  in  this  connection.  The 
goal  of  their  lives  was  still,  as  of  old,  "  the  salvation 
of  God ;  "  but  this  was  what  they  understood  the  sal- 
vation of  God  to  be.  They  had  lost  the  intuition, 


198  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

and  they  had  thrown  themselves,  heart  and  soul,  upon 
an  extra-belief,  or  Aberglaube. 


3. 


Now,  if  we  describe  the  work  of  Christ  by  a  short 
expression  which  may  give  the  clearest  view  of  it, 
we  shall  describe  it  thus:  that  he  came  to  restore  the 
tiititilion.  He  came,  it  is  true,  to  sace,  and  to  gire 
eternal  life;  but  the  way  in  which  he  did  this  was  by 
restoring  the  intuition. 

This  we  have  already  touched  upon  in  our  third 
chapter,  for  we  there  passed  in  brief  review  the  teach- 
ing of  Jesus.  But  there  the  objection  met  us,  that 
what  attested  Christ  was  miracles,  and  the  preter- 
natural fulfilment  in  him  of  certain  minute  predic- 
tions made  about  him  long  before;  and  that  such  is 
the  teaching  of  Christ  himself  and  of  the  Bible.  "\Yr 
had  to  pause  and  deal  with  this  objection;  and  now, 
as  it  disperses,  we  come  in  full  view  of  our  old  point 
again, — that  what  did  attest  Christ  was  his  restora- 
tion of  the  intuition.  He  found  Israel  all  astray, 
with  an  endless  talk  about  God,  the  law,  righteous- 
ness, the  kingdom,  everlasting  life, — and  no  real  hojd 
upon  any  one  of  them.  Israel's  old,  sure  proof  of 
being  in  the  right  way — the  sanction  of  joy  and  peace 
— was  plainly  wanting;  and  this  was  a  test  which 
anybody  could  at  once  apply.  "  O  Eternal,  blessed 
is  the  man  that  putteth  his  trust  in  thfc."  was  a  cor- 
Tior-stono  of  Israel's  religion.  Xow,  the  Jewish  peo- 
ple, however  thoy  might  talk  about  putting  their  trust 


THE  TESTIMONY  OF  JESUS  TO  HIMSELF.      199 

in  the  Eternal,  were  evidently,  as  they  stood  there 
before  Jesus,  not  blessed  at  all;  and  they  knew  it 
themselves  as  well  as  he  did.  "  Great  peace  have 
they  who  love  thy  law,"  was  another  corner-stone. 
But  the  Jewish  people  had  at  that  time  in  its  soul  as 
little  peace  as  it  had  joy  and  blessedness;  it  was 
seething  with  inward  unrest,  irritation,  and  trouble. 
Yet  the  way  of  the  Eternal  was  most  indubitably  a 
way  of  peace  and  joy ;  so,  if  Israel  felt  no  peace  and 
no  joy,  it  could  not  be  walking  in  the  way  of  the 
Eternal.  Here  we  have  the  firm  unchanging  ground 
on  which  the  operations  of  Jesus  both  began,  and  al- 
ways proceeded. 

And  it  is  to  be  observed  that  Jesus  by  no  means 
gave  a  new,  more  precise,  scientific  definition  of  God, 
but  took  up  this  term  just  as  Israel  used  it,  to  stand 
for  the  Eternal  that  loveth  righteousness.  If  there- 
fore this  term  was,  in  Israel's  use  of  it,  not  a  term  of 
science,  but,  as  we  say,  a  term  of  common  speech,  of 
poetry  and  eloquence,  thrown  out  at  a  vast  object  of 
consciousness  not  fully  covered  by  it,  so  it  was  in 
Christ's  use  of  it  also.  And  if  the  substratum  of 
scientific  affirmation  in  the  term  was,  with  Israel,  not 
the  affirmation  of  "  a  great  Personal  First  Cause,  the 
moral  and  intelligent  Governor  of  the  universe,"  but 
the  affirmation  of  "  an  enduring  Power,  not  our- 
selves, that  makes  for  righteousness,"  so  it  remained 
with  Christ  likewise.  He  set  going  a  great  process 
of  searching  and  sifting,  but  this  process  had  for  its 
direct  object  the  idea  of  righteousness,  and  only 
touched  the  idea  of  God  through  this,  and  not  inde- 


200  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

pendently  of  this  and  immediately.  If  the  idea  of 
righteousness  was  changed,  this  implied,  undoubt- 
edly, a  corresponding  change  in  the  idea  of  the 
Power  that  makes  for  righteousness ;  but  in  this  man- 
ner only,  and  to  this  extent,  does  the  teaching  of 
Jesus  re-define  the  idea  of  God. 

But  search  and  sift  and  renew  the  idea  of  right- 
eousness Jesus  did.  And  though  the  work  of  Jesus, 
like  the  name  of  God,  calls  up  in  the  believer  a  mul- 
titude of  emotions  and  associations  far  more  than  any 
brief  definition  can  cover,  yet,  remembering  Jeremy 
Taylor's  advice  to  avoid  exhortations  to  get  Christ,  to 
be  in  Christ,  and  to  seek  some  more  distinct  and 
practical  way  of  speaking  of  him,  we  shall  not  do  ill, 
perhaps,  if  we  summarize  to  our  own  minds  his  work 
by  saying,  that  he  restored  the  intuition  of  God 
through  transforming  the  idea  of  righteousness ;  and 
that,  to  do  this,  he  brought  a  method,  and  he  brought 
a  secret.  And  of  those  two  great  words  which  fill 
•-ueh  a  place  in  his  gospel,  repentance  and  peace, — as 
we  see  that  his  Apostles,  when  they  preached  his  gos- 
pel, preached  "Repentance  unto  life"  and  "Peace 
through  Jesus  Christ," — of  these  two  great  words, 
one,  repentance,  attaches  itself,  we  shall  find,  to  his 
method,  and  the  other,  peace,  to  his  scrn  I. 

There  was  no  question  between  Jesus  and  the 
Jews  as  to  the  object  to  aim  at.  "  If  thou  wouldst 
enter  into  life,  keep  the  Commandments,"  said  Jesus. 
And  Israel,  too,  on  his  part,  said :  "  He  that  keepeth 
the  commandments  keepeth  his  own  soul."  But  irliof 
i-oinmandments  ?  The  commandments  of  God  ;  about 


THE  TESTIMONY  OF  JESUS  TO  HIMSELF.      201 

this,  too,  there  was  no  question.  But :  "  Leaving  the 
commandment  of  God,  ye  hold  the  tradition  of  men; 
ye  make  the  commandment  of  God  of  none  effect  by 
your  tradition,"  said  Jesus.  Therefore  the  com- 
mandments which  Israel  followed  were  not  the  com- 
mandments of  God,  by  which  a  man  keeps  his  own 
soul,  enters  into  life.  And  the  practical  proof  of 
this  was,  that  Israel  stood  before  the  eyes  of  the 
world  manifestly  neither  joyful,  nor  blessed,  nor  at 
peace ;  yet  these  characters  of  joy,  bliss,  and  peace, 
the  following  of  the  real  commandments  was  con- 
fessed to  give.  So  a  rule,  or  method,  was  wanted,  by 
which  to  determine  what  the  real  commandments 
were. 

And  Jesus  gave  one :  "  The  things  that  come  from 
within  a  man's  heart,  they  it  is  that  defile  him !  " 
We  have  seen  what  an  immense  matter  conduct  is ; — 
that  it  is  three  fourths  of  life.  We  have  seen  how 
plain  and  simple  a  matter  it  is,  so  far  as  knowledge 
is  concerned.  We  have  seen  how,  moreover,  philos- 
ophers are  for  referring  all  conduct  to  one  or  other 
of  man's  two  elementary  instincts, — the  instinct  of 
self-preservation  and  the  reproductive  instinct;  it 
is  the  suggestions  of  one  or  other  of  these  instincts, 
they  say,  which  call  forth  all  cases  in  which  there 
is  scope  for  exercising  morality,  or  conduct.  And 
this  does,  we  saw,  cover  the  facts  well  enough.  For 
we  can  run  up  nearly  all  faults  of  conduct  into  two 
classes, — faults  of  temper  and  faults  of  sensuality; 
to  be  referred,  all  of  them,  to  one  or  other  of  these 
two  instincts. 


202  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

Now  Jesus  not  only  says  that  things  coming  from 
within  a  man's  heart  defile  him,  he  adds  expressly 
what  these  things  that,  coining  from  within  a  man, 
defile  him,  are.  And  what  he  enumerates  are  the 
following :  "  Evil  thoughts,  fornications,  stealings, 
murders,  adulteries,  greed,  vices,  fraud,  dissolute- 
ness, envy,  evil-speaking,  pride,  folly."  These  fall 
into  two  groups :  one,  of  faults  of  self-assertion,  grasp- 
ingness,  and  violence,  all  of  which  we  may  call  faults 
of  temper;  and  the  other,  of  faults  of  sensuality. 
And  the  two  groups,  between  them,  do  for  practical 
purposes  cover  all  the  range  of  faults  proceeding  from 
these  two  sources,  and  therefore  all  the  range  of  con- 
duct. So  the  motions  or  impulses  to  faults  of  con- 
duct were  what  Jesus  said  the  real  commandments  are 
concerned  with.  And  it  was  plain  what  such  faults 
are ;  but,  to  make  assurance  more  sure,  he,  as  we  have 
seen,  said  what  they  are. 

No  outward  observances  were  conduct,  were  that 
keeping  of  the  commandments  which  was  the  keep- 
ing of  a  man's  own  soul  and  made  him  enter  into 
life.  To  have  the  thoughts  in  order  as  to  certain 
matters  was  conduct.  This  was  the  "  method  "  of 
Jesus:  setting  up  a  great  unceasing  inward  move- 
ment of  attention  and  verification  in  matters  which 
are  three  fourths  of  human  life,  where  to  see  true  and 
to  verify  is  not  difficult,  the  difficult  thing  is  to  care 
and  to  attend.  And  the  inducement  to  attend  was, 
because  joy  and  peace,  missed  on  every  other  line, 
were  to  be  reached  on  this. 

"  Keep  judgment  and  do  righteousness!  "  had  not 


THE  TESTIMONY  OF  JESUS  TO  HIMSELF.       203 

been  guidance  enough.  The  Jews  found  themselves 
taking  "  meats  and  drinks  and  divers  washings  "  for 
judgment ;  taking  for  righteousness  "  gifts  and  sacri- 
fices which  cannot  perfect  the  worshipper  as  to  his 
conscience"  (here  is  the  word  of  Jesus!);  tithing 
mint,  anise,  and  cummin;  saying  to  their  parents, 
It  is  Corban!  evil-disposed,  and  not  at  all  blessed. 
But :  "  As  to  all  wherein  what  men  commonly  call 
conduct  is  exercised, — eating,  drinking,  ease,  pleas- 
ure, money,  the  intercourse  of  the  sexes,  the  giving 
full  swing  to  one's  tempers  and  instincts, — as  to  all 
this,  watch  attentively  what  passes  within  you,  that 
you  may  obey  the  voice  of  conscience !  so  you  will 
keep  God's  commandment  and  be  blessed ;  " — this  is 
the  new  and  much  more  exact  guidance.  "  The 
things  that  come  from  within  a  man's  heart,  they 
defile  him !  cleanse  the  inside  of  the  cup !  beware  of 
the  leaven  of  the  Pharisees,  which  is  insincerity! 
judge  not  after  the  appearance,  but  judge  righteous 
judgment !  "  — this,  we  say,  is  the  "  method  "  of 
Jesus.  To  it  belongs  his  use  of  that  important  word 
which  in  the  Greek  is  "  metanoia."  We  translate 
it  repentance,  a  mourning  and  lamenting  over  one's 
sins ;  and  we  translate  it  wrong.  Of  "  metanoia," 
as  Jesus  used  the  word,  the  lamenting  one's  sins  was 
a  small  part ;  the  main  part  was  something  far  more 
active  and  fruitful,  the  setting  up  an  immense  new 
inward  movement  for  obtaining  the  rule  of  life.  And 
"'  metanoia,"  accordingly,  is:  "a  change  of  the  inner 
man." 

Mention  and  recommendation  of  this  inwardness 


j>i;4  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

there  often  was,  we  know,  in  prophet  or  psalmist; 
but  to  make  mention  of  it  was  one  thing,  to  erect  it 
into  a  positive  method  was  another.  Christianity 
has  made  it  so  familiar,  that  to  give  any  freshness  to 
one's  words  about  it  is  now  not  easy;  but  to  its  first 
recipients  it  was  abundantly  fresh  and  novel.  It 
was  the  introduction,  in  morals  and  religion,  of  the 
famous  know  thyself  of  the  Greeks;  and  this  among 
a  people  deeply  serious,  but  also  wedded  to  moral  and 
religious  routine,  and  singularly  devoid  of  flexibility 
and  play  of  mind.  For  them  it  was  a  revolution. 
Of  course  the  hard  thing  is  not  to  say,  "  Cleanse  the 
inside  of  the  cup,"  but  to  make  people  do  it ;  in  moral- 
and  religion,  the  man  who  is  "  founded  upon  rock  " 
is  always,  as  Jesus  said,  the  man  who  does,  never  tin- 
man who  only  hears.  To  say,  Look  wi/li  in .  was  there- 
fore not  everything;  yet  we  none  of  us,  probably, 
enough  feel  the  power  which  at  first  resided  in  the 
mere  saying  of  it,  as  Christ  said  it.  And  this  is  lie 
cause  his  words  have  become  so  trite  to  us  that  we  fail 
to  see  how  powerfully  they  were  all  adapted  to  call 
forth  the  new  habit  of  inwardness;  and  if  we  \v:mt 
to  see  this,  we  must  for  a  time  either  re  translate  his 
words  for  ourselves  or  paraphrase  them.  And  not 
only  the  words  he  employed,  but  also  the  words  he 
excited;  the  words  which  the  effect  produeed  by  him 
made  men  use  about  him.  Just  as  it  i-  well  t<>  sub- 
stitute Eternal  for  Lord,  and  /lie  f/»o<l  /«•//•*  1W  fltr 
gospel,  so  we  must  put  new  words  in  the  place  of  the 
now  hackneyed  repentance,  truth.  f/nic<'.  xpiril.  if  we 
wish  at  all  to  know  how  those  words  worked  origin- 


THE  TESTIMONY  OF  JESUS  TO  HIMSELF.      205 

ally.  "  Metanoia,"  we  have  seen,  is  a  change  of  the 
inner  man :  "  repentance  unto  life  "  was  "  a  life- 
giving  change  of  the  inner  man."  "  Aletheia  "  is 
not  so  well  rendered  truth,  which  is  often  speculative 
only,  as  it  is  reality:  "  charis  "  is  the  boon  of  happi- 
ness.- Instead,  then,  of  "  Grace  and  truth  came 
through  Jesus  Christ,"  let  us  say :  "  Happiness  and 
reality  came  through  Jesus  Christ ;  "  instead  of,  "  To 
know  the  grace  of  God  in  truth,"  "  To  know  the  hap- 
piness of  God  in  reality."  Even  if  the  new  render- 
ing is  not  so  literally  correct  as  the  old,  not  perma- 
nently to  be  adopted,  it  will  be  of  use  to  us  for  a 
while  to  show  us  how  the  words  worked. 

Above  all  is  this  true  in  regard  to  the  word  spirit, 
made  so  mechanical  by  popular  religion  that  it  has 
come  to  mean  "  a  person  without  a  body,"  which  is 
the  child's  definition  of  a  ghost.  This  word,  spe- 
cially designed  by  Jesus  to  serve  in  restoring  the  in- 
tuition and  in  bringing  Israel's  religion  face  to  face 
with  Israel's  inward  consciousness,  is  rather  influ- 
ence; "  Except  a  man  be  born  of  a  new  influence,  he 
cannot  see  the  kingdom  of  God."  Instead  of  pro- 
claiming what  the  Bishop  of  Gloucester  calls  "  the 
blessed  truth  that  the  God  of  the  universe  is  a  Per- 
son," Jesus  uttered  a  warning  for  all  time  against 
this  unprofitable  jargon  by  saying:  "God  is  an  in- 
fluence, and  those  who  would  serve  him  must  serve 
him  not  by  any  form  of  words  or  rites,  but  by  inward 
motion  and  in  reality !  "  ~No  rendering  can  too 
strongly  bring  out  the  original  bent  to  inwardness  and 


206  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

intuition  in  language  of  this  kind,  which  has  now  be- 
come almost  formal  to  us. 

Just  the  same  bent  appears  in  Christ's  taking,  as 
the  rule  for  a  man's  action  in  regard  to  another's  con- 
duct, simply  and  solely  the  effect  on  the  actor's  own 
character.  This  is  what  is  so  striking  in  the  story 
of  the  woman  taken  in  adultery :  "  Let  him  that  is 
without  fault  cast  the  first  stone !  and  they  were  all 
convicted  by  their  conscience."  And  who  is  without 
fault,  and  where  is  the  judge  whom  the  conviction 
of  conscience  might  not  thus  paralyze  ?  Punish- 
ment, then,  is  impossible;  and,  with  punishment, 
government  and  society  ?  But  punishment,  govern- 
ment, and  society  are  all  of  them  after-inventions, 
creations  of  man,  and  unintuitive.  Jesus  regarded 
simply  what  was  primary, — the  individual  and  the 
intuition.  And  in  truth  if  the  individual  and  the 
intuition  are  once  reached,  the  after-inventions  may 
be  left  to  take  care  of  themselves;  and  if  conscience 
ever  became  enough  of  a  power,  there  would  be  no 
offenders  to  punish.  This  is  the  true  line  of  re- 
ligion ;  it  was  the  line  of  Jesus.  To  work  the  reno- 
vation needed,  he  concentrated  his  efforts  upon  a 
method  of  inwardness,  of  taking  counsel  of  con- 
science. 


4. 


But  for  this  world  of  busy  inward  movement  cre- 
ated by  the  method  of  Jesus,  a  rule  of  action  was 
wanted ;  and  this  rule  was  found  in  his  secret.  It 


THE  TESTIMONY  OF  JESUS  TO  HIMSELF.      207 

was  the  same  of  which  the  Apostle  Paul  afterwards 
possessed  himself  with  such  energy,  and  called  "  the 
wgrd  of  the  cross,"  *  or,  necrosis,  "  dying."  The 
rule  of  action  Paul  gave  was :  "  Always  bearing  about 
in  the  body  the  dying  of  the  Lord  Jesus,  that  the 
life  also  of  Jesus  may  be  made  manifest  in  our 
body !  "  In  the  popular  theurgy,  these  words  are 
commonly  referred  to  what  is  called  "  pleading  the 
blood  of  the  covenant," — relying  on  the  death  and 
merits  of  Christ,  in  pursuance  of  the  contract  origin- 
ally passed  in  the  Council  of  the  Trinity,  to  satisfy 
God's  wrath  against  sinners  and  to  redeem  us.  But 
they  do  really  refer  to  words  of  Jesus,  often  and 
often  repeated,  and  of  which  the  following  may  very 
well  stand  as  pre-eminently  representative :  "  He 
that  loveth  his  life  shall  lose  it,  and  he  that  hateth 
his  life  in  this  world  shall  keep  it  unto  life  eternal. 
Whosoever  would  come  after  me,  let  him  renounce 
himself,  and  take  up  his  cross  daily,  and  follow  me." 
These  words,  or  words  like  them,  were  repeated 
again  and  again,  so  that  no  reporter  could  miss  them. 
]STo  reporter  did  miss  them.  We  find  them,  as  we 
find  the  "  method  "  of  conscience,  in  all  the  four 
Gospels.  Perhaps  there  is  no  maxim  of  Jesus  that 
has  such  a  combined  stress  of  evidence  for  it,  and 
may  be  taken  as  so  eminently  his.  And  no  won- 
der ;  for  the  maxim  contains  his  secret,  the  secret  by 
which,  emphatically,  his  gospel  "  brought  life  and  im- 
mortality to  light."  His  "  method  "  directed  the 
disciple's  eye  inward  and  set  his  consciousness  to 

*  0  70^05-  6  TOV  frarpov.      1  Cor.  1.  18, 


208  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

work;  and  the  first  thing  his  consciousness  told  him 
was,  that  he  had  two  selves  pulling  him  different 
ways.  Till  we  attend,  till  the  method  is  set  at  work, 
it  seems  as  if  "  the  wishes  of  the  tlcsh  and  of  the  cur- 
rent thoughts,"  *  were  to  be  followed  as  a  matter  of 
course;  as  if  an  impulse  to  do  a  thing  means  that  wo 
should  do  it.  But.  when  we  attend,  we  find  that  an  im- 
pulse to  do  a  thing  is  really  in  itsolf  no  reason  at  all 
why  wo  should  do  it;  because  impulses  proceed  from 
two  sources,  quite  different,  and  of  quite  different  de- 
grees of  authority.  St.  Paul  contrasts  them  as  the  in- 
ward man,  and  the  man  in  our  members;  the  mind  of 
the  flesh, and  the  spiritual  mind.  Jesus  contrasts  them 
as  life,  properly. so  named,  and  life  in  this  world. •[ 
And  the  moment  we  seriously  attend  to  conscience, 
to  the  suggestions  which  concern  practice  and  con- 
duct, we  can  see  plainly  enough  from  which  source 
a  suggestion  comes,  and  that  the  suggestions  from  one 
source  are  to  overrule  those  from  the  other. 

But  this  is  a  negative  state  of  things,  a  reign  of 
check  and  constraint,  a  reign,  merely,  of  morality. 
Jesus  changed  it  into  what  was  positive  and  attrac- 
tive, lighted  it  up,  made  it  religion,  by  the  idea  "f 
two  lives.  One  of  them,  life  properly  so  called,  full 
of  light,  endurance,  felicity,  in  connection  with  the 
higher  and  permanent  self;  and  the  other  of  them, 
life  improperly  so  called,  in  connection  with  the 
lower  and  transient  self.  The  first  kind  of  life  was 

*  Ta  8t7.fi/jaTa  nyf  aapKbf  KOI  ruv  dtavotur. — Eph.  ii.  3. 

f  The  strict  grammatical  and  logical  e.'im. '-tinn  of  the 
words  i v  TU  K/xjfiu  rovru  is  with  i>  /uouv,  but  the  sense  and  effect 
is  as  given  above. 


THE  TESTIMONY  OF  JESUS  TO  HIMSELF.      209 

already  a  cherished  ideal  with  Israel  ("  Thou  wilt 
show  me  the  path  of  life!")  ;  and  a  man  might  be 
placed  in  it,  Jesus  said,  by  dying  to  the  second.  For 
it  is  to  be  noted  that  our  common  expression,  "  deny 
himself,"  is  an  inadequate  and  misleading  version  of 
the  words  used  by  Jesus.  To  deny  one's  self  is  com- 
monly understood  to  mean  that  one  refuses  one's  self 
something ;  but  what  Jesus  says  is :  "  Let  a  man  dis- 
own himself,  renounce  himself,  die  as  regards  his  old 
self,  and  so  live.  Himself,  the  old  man,  the  life  in 
this  world,  meant  following  those  "  wishes  of  the 
flesh  and  of  the  current  thoughts  "  which  Jesus  had, 
by  his  method,  already  put  his  disciples  in  the  way 
of  sifting  and  scrutinizing,  and  of  trying  by  the 
standard  of  conformity  to  conscience. 

Thus,  after  putting  him  by  his  method  in  the  way 
to  find  what  doing  righteousness  was,  by  his  secret 
Jesus  put  the  disciples  in  the  way  of  doing  it.  For 
the  breaking  the  sway  of  what  is  commonly  called 
one's  self,  ceasing  our  concern  with  it  and  leaving 
it  to  perish,  is  not,  he  said,  being  thwarted  or  crossed, 
but  living.  And  the  proof  of  this  is  that  it  has  the 
characters  of  life  in  the  highest  degree, — the  sense  of 
going  right,  hitting  the  mark,  succeeding.  That  is,  it 
has  the  characters  of  happiness;  and  happiness  is,  for 
Israel,  the  same  thing  as  having  the  Eternal  with  us, 
seeing  the  salvation  of  God.  "  The  tree,"  as  Jesus 
was  always  saying,  "  is  known  by  its  fruits;  "  Jesus 
was  to  be  received  by  Israel  as  sent  from  God,  be- 
cause the  secret  of  Jesus  lead-  T<>  the  snlvation  of  God, 
which  is  what  Israel  most  desired.  "  The  word  of 

H 


210  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

the  cross,"  in  short,  turned  out  to  be  at  the  same  time 
"  the  word  of  the  kingdom."  And  to  this  experi- 
mental sanction  of  his  secret,  this  sense  it  gives  of 
having  the  Eternal  on  our  side  and  approving  11-. 
Jesus  appealed  when  he  said  of  himself :  "  Therefore 
doth  my  Father  love  me,  because  I  lay  down  my  life, 
that  I  may  take  it  again."  This,  again,  in  our 
popular  theurgy,  is  materialized  into  the  First  Person 
of  the  Trinity  approving  the  Second,  because  he 
stands  to  the  contract  already  in  the  Council  of  the 
Trinity  passed.  But  what  it  really  means  is,  that 
the  joy  of  Jesus,  of  this  "  Son  of  peace,"  the  "  joy  " 
he  was  so  desirous  that  his  disciples  should  find 
"  fulfilled  in  themselves,"  was  due  to  his  having  him- 
self followed  his  own  secret.  And  the  great  counter- 
part to :  "A  life-giving  change  of  the  inner  man,"- 
the  promise :  "  Peace  through  Jesus  Christ !  "  —is 
peace  through  this  secret  of  his. 

Now,  the  value  of  this  rule  that  one  should  die  to 
one's  apparent  self,  live  to  one's  real  self,  depends 
upon  whether  it  is  true.  And  true  it  certainly  is ; — 
a  profound  truth  of  what  our  scientific  friends,  wh<> 
have  a  systematic  philosophy  and  a  nomenclature  to 
match,  and  who  talk  of  Egoism  and  Altruism,  would 
call,  perhaps,  psycho-physiology.  And  we  m;iy 
trace  men's  experience  affirming  and  confirming  if. 
from  a  very  plain  and  level  account  of  it  to  tin  ac- 
count almost  as  high  and  solemn  as  that  of  Jesus. 
That  an  opposition  there  is,  in  all  mattor  of  what  wo 
call  conduct,  between  a  man's  first  impulses  and  what 
*  0  A^tof  nfc  Baoiteiaf. — Matt.  xiii.  19, 


THE  TESTIMONY  OF  JESUS  TO  HIMSELF.      211 

he  ultimately  ilnds  to  be  the  real  law  of  his  being; 
that  a  man  accomplishes  his  right  function  as  a  man, 
fulfils  his  end,  hits  the  mark,  in  giving  effect  to  the 
real  law  of  his  being;  and  that  happiness  attends  his 
thus  hitting  the  mark, — all  good  observers  report. 
Xo  statement  of  this  general  experience  can  be  sim- 
pler or  more  faithful  than  one  given  us  by  that  great 
naturalist,  Aristotle.*  "  In  all  wholes  made  up  of 
parts,"  says  he,  "  there  is  a  ruler  and  a  ruled ; 
throughout  nature  this  is  so ;  we  see  it  even  in  things 
without  life,  they  have  their  harmony  or  law.  The 
living  being  is  composed  of  soul  and  body,  whereof 
the  one  is  naturally  ruler  and  the  other  ruled.  Now 
what  is  natural  we  are  to  learn  from  what  fulfills  the 
law  of  its  nature  most,  and  not  from  what  is  de- 
praved. So  we  ought  to  take  the  man  who  has  the 
best  disposition  of  body  and  soul;  and  in  him  we 
shall  find  that  this  is  so ;  for  in  people  that  are  griev- 
ous both  to  others  and  to  themselves  the  body  may 
often  appear  ruling  the  soul,  because  such  people  are 
poor  creatures  and  false  to  nature."  And  Aristotle 
goes  on  to  distinguish  between  the  body.,  over  which, 
he  says,  the  rule  of  the  soul  is  absolute,  and  the 
"  movement  of  thought  and  desire,"  over  which  rea- 
son has,  says  he,  "  a  constitutional  rule,"  in  words 
which  exactly  recall  St.  Paul's  phrase  for  our  double 
enemy :  "  the  flesh  and  the  current  thoughts."  So 
entirely  are  we  here  on  ground  of  general  experience. 
And  if  we  go  on  and  take  this  maxim  from  Stobaeus : 
"  All  find  acquirement  implies  a  foregoing  exercise  of 

*  Politics,  1.  5. 


212  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

self-control ;  "  *  or  this  from  the  Latin  poet :  "  Rule 
your  current  self  or  it  will  rule  you!  bridle  it  in  and 
chain  it  down !  "  f  or  this  from  Goethe's  autobiog- 
raphy :  "  Everything  cries  out  to  us  that  we  must 
renounce; "  \  or  still  more  this  from  his  Faust; 
"  Thou  must  go  without,  go  without !  that  is  the  ever- 
lasting song  which  every  hour,  all  our  life  through, 
hoarsely  sings  to  us !  "  § — then  we  have  testimony  not 
only  to  the  necessity  of  this  natural  law  of  rule  and 
su jipression,  but  also  to  the  strain  and  labor  and  suf- 
fering which  attend  it.  But  when  we  come  a  little 
farther  and  take  a  sentence  like  this  of  Plato :  "  Of 
sufferings  and  pains  cometh  help,  for  it  is  not  possi- 
ble by  any  other  way  to  be  ridded  of  our  iniquity  ;  " 
then  we  get  a  higher  strain,  a  strain  like  St.  Peter's ; 
"  He  that  hath  suffered  in  the  flesh  hath  ceased  from 
sin ;  "  and  we  are  brought  to  see,  not  only  the  neces- 
sity of  the  law  of  rule  and  suppression,  not  only  the 
pain  and  suffering  in  it,  but  also  its  beneficence.  And 
this  positive  sense  of  beneficence,  salutariness,  and 
hope,  comes  out  yet  more  strongly  when  Wordsworth 
says  to  Duty:  "  Nor  know  we  anything  so  fair  as  i> 
the  smile  upon  thy  face;"  or  when  Bishop  Wilson 
says :  "  They  that  deny  themselves  will  be  sure  to 

*  TlavTof  naXov  KTrjfiaro^  ir6vo$  irpoTjyeiTai  b  /car'  eynpaTeiav. 
f  .  .  .  Animum  rege,  <jui  nisi  paret 

Imperat ;  hunc  fraenis  hunc  tu  compesce  catenis. 
i  Alles  ruft  uns  Zu.  dass  wir  entsagen  sollen. 
§  Entbeliren  sollst  du  !  solist  entbehren  ! 

Das  ist  der  ewige  Gesang. 

Den  unser  ganzes  Leben  lang 

Uns  lipisftr  jede  Stunde  singt. 

I  Ai  n/.yrjfovuv  /cat   ofiwuv  yiyverai  rj  dxteAeMZ  oil  yap  ol6v  re 
d(5«c<rtf  a^a"/.'/.i'i-rt(jH(u. — Gorgias,  c.  81. 


THE  TESTIMONY  OF  JESUS  TO  HIMSELF.      213 

find  their  strength  increased,  their  affections  raised, 
and  their  inward  peace  continually  augmented ;  "  and 
most  of  all,  perhaps,  when  we  hear  from  Goethe: 
u  Die  and  re-exist!  for  so  long  as  this  is  not  accom- 
plished thou  art  but  a  troubled  guest  upon  an  earth 
of  gloom !  "  *  But  this  is  evidently  borrowed  from 
Jesus,  and  by  one  whose  testimony  is  of  the  more 
weight,  because  he  certainly  would  not  have  become 
thus  a  borrower  from  Jesus,  unless  the  truth  had 
compelled  him. 

And  never,  certainly,  was  the  joy  which  in  self- 
renouncement  underlies  the  pain,  so  brought  out,  as 
when  Jesus  boldly  called  the  suppression  of  our  first 
impulses  and  current  thoughts,  life,  real  life,  eternal 
life.  So  that  Jesus  not  only  saw  this  great  necessary 
truth  of  their  being,  as  Aristotle  says,  in  human  na- 
ture a  part  to  rule  and  a  part  to  be  mled ;  he  saw  it. 
so  thoroughly,  that  he  saw  through  the  suffering  at  its 
surface  to  the  joy  at  its  centre,  filled  it  with  promise 
and  hope,  and  made  it  infinitely  attractive.  As 
Israel,  therefore,  is  "  the  people  of  righteousness," 
because,  though  others  have  perceived  the  importance 
of  righteousness,  Israel,  above  every  one,  perceived 
the  happiness  of  it ;  so  self-renouncement,  .the  main 
factor  in  conduct  or  righteousness,  is  "  the  secret  of 
Jesus,"  because,  though  others  have  seen  that  it  was 
necessary,  Jesus,  above  every  one,  saw  that  it  was 
peace,  joy,  life. 

*  Stirb  und  werde  ! 
Derm,  so  lang  du  das  nicht  hast, 
Bist  du  mir  ein  triiber  Gast 
Auf  der  dunkeln  Erde  ! 


LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

Xow,  we  may  observe,  that  even  Aristotle  (and  it 
is  a  mark  of  his  greatness)  does  not,  in  the  passage 
we  have  quoted  from  him,  begin  with  a  complete  sys- 
tem of  psycho-physiology,  and  show  us  where  and 
how  and  why  in  this  system  the  rule  of  renouncement 
comes  in,  and  draw  out  for  us  definitely  the  law  of 
our  being  towards  which  this  rule  leads  up.  He  says 
that  the  rule  exists,  that  it  is  ancillary  to  the  law  of 
our  being,  and  that  we  are  to  study  the  best  men,  in 
whom  it  most  exists,  to  make  us  see  that  it  is  thus 
ancillary.  He  here  appeals  throughout  to  a  verify- 
ing sense,  such  as  we  have  said  that  every  one  in  this 
great  but  plain  matter  of  conduct  really  has ;  he  does 
not  appeal  to  a  speculative  theory  of  the  system  of 
things,  and  deduce  conclusions  from  it.  And  he 
shows  his  greatness  in  this,  because  the  law  of  our 
being  is  not  something  which  is  already  definitely 
known  and  can  be  exhibited  as  part  of  a  speculative 
theory  of  the  system  of  things ;  it  is  something  which 
discovers  itself  and  becomes,  as  we  follow  (among 
other  things)  the  rule  of  renouncement.  What  we 
can  say  with  most  certainty  about  the  law  of  our  be- 
ing is,  that  we  find  the  rule  of  renouncement  lead 
sensibly  up  to  it.  In  matters  of  practice  and  conduct 
therefore,  an  experience,  like  this,  is  really  a  far 
safer  ground  to  insist  on  than  any  speculative  theory 
of  the  system  of  things.  And  to  a  theory  of  such 
sort  Jesus  never  appeals.  Here  is  what  character- 
izes his  teaching,  and  distinguishes  him,  for  instance, 
from  the  author  of  the  Fourth  Gospel.  This  author 
handles  what  we  may  call  thcosophical  speculation  in 


THE  TESTIMONY  OF  JESUS  TO  HIMSELF.      215 

a  beautiful  and  impressive  manner ;  his  introduction 
is  undoubtedly  in  a  very  noble  and  profound  strain. 
But  it  is  theory ;  an  intellectual  theory  of  the  divine 
nature  and  the  system  of  things,  which  was  then,  and 
is  still  at  present,  utterly  irreducible  to  experience. 
And  therefore  it  is  impossible  even  to  conceive  Jesus 
himself  uttering  the  introduction  to  the  Fourth  Gos- 
pel ;  because  theory  Jesus  never  touches,  but  bases 
himself  invariably  on  experience.  True,  the  experi- 
ence must,  for  philosophy,  have  its  place  in  a  theory 
of  the  system  of  human  nature,  when  the  theory  is 
perfect ;  but  the  point  is,  that  the  experience  is  ripe, 
and  solid,  and  to  be  used  safely,  long  before  the 
theory.  And  it  was  the  experience  which  Jesus  al- 
ways used. 

Undoubtedly,  however,  attempts  may  not  improp- 
erly be  made,  even  now, — by  those,  at  least,  who  have 
a  talent  for  these  matters, — to  exhibit  the  experience, 
with  what  leads  to  it  and  what  derives  from  it,  in 
a  system  of  psycho-physiology.  And  then,  perhaps, 
it  will  be  found  to  be  connected  with  other  truths  of 
psycho-physiology,  such  as  the  unity  of  life,  as  it  is 
called,  and  the  impersonality  of  reason.  Only  then 
it  will  be  philosophy,  mental  exercitation,  and  wilt 
concern  us  as  a  matter  of  science,  not  of  conduct. 
And,  as  the  discipline  of  conduct  is  three  fourths  of 
life,  for  our  aesthetic  and  intellectual  disciplines,  real 
as  these  are,  there  is  but  one  fourth  of  life  left ;  and 
if  we  let  art  and  science  divide  this  one  fourth  fairly 
between  them,  they  will  have  just  one  eighth  of  life 
each. 


LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

So  the  exhibition  of  the  truth,  "  He  that  loveth 
his  life  shall  lose  it,  and  he  that  hateth  his  life  in 
this  world  shall  keep  it  unto  life  eternal,"  in  its  order 
and  place  as  a  truth  of  psycho-physiology,  concerns 
one  eighth  of  our  life  and  no  more.  I  Jut  Jesus,  we 
say,  exhibited  nothing  for  the.  benefit  of  this  one 
eighth  of  us;  this  is  what  distinguishes  him  from  all 
moralists  and  philosophers,  and  even  from  the  great- 
est of  his  own  disciples.  How  he  reached  a  doctrine 
we  cannot  say;  but  he  always  exhibited  it  as  an  in- 
tuition and  a  practical  rule,  and  a  practical  rule 
which,  if  adopted,  would  have  the  force  of  an  intui- 
tion for  its  adopter  also.  This  is  why  none  of  his 
doctrines  are  of  the  character  of  that  favorite  doc- 
trine of  the  Bishop  of  Gloucester,  "  the  blessed  truth 
that  the  God  of  the  universe  is  a  Person ;  "  because 
this  doctrine  is  incapable  of  application  as  a  practical 
rule,  and  can  never  come  to  have  the  force  of  an  in- 
tuition. But  what  we  call  the  secret  of  Jesus,  "  lie 
that  loveth  his  life  shall  lose  it,  and  he  that  hateth  his 
life  in  this  world  shall  keep  it  unto  life  eternal  "  was 
a  truth  of  which  he  could  say :  "  It  is  so ;  try  it  your- 
self and  you  will  see  it  is  so,  by  the  sense  of  Hrin>/, 
of  going  right,  hitting  the  mark,  succeeding,  which 
you  will  get." 

And  the  same  with  the  commandment,  "  Love  one 
another,"  which  is  the  positive  side  of  the  comma  nd- 
ini 'iit,  ''Renounce  thyself,"  and,  like  this,  can  be 
drawn  out  as  a  truth  of  psycho-physiology.  Jesus 
exhibited  it  as  an  intuition  and  a  practical  rule;  and 
as  what,  by  being  practised,  would,  through  giving 


THE  TESTIMONY  OF  JESUS  TO  HIMSELF.       217 

happiness,  prove  its  own  truth  as  a  rule  of  life.  This, 
wo  say,  is  of  the  very  essence  of  his  secret  of  self- 
renouncement,  as  of  his  method  of  inwardness ; — that 
its  truth  will  be  found  to  commend  itself  by  happi- 
ness, to  prove  itself  by  happiness.  And  of  the  se- 
cret more  especially  is  this  true ;  and  as  we  have  said, 
that  though  there  gathers  round  the  word  "  God  " 
very  much  besides,  yet  we  shall  in  general,  in  reading 
the  Bible,  get  the  surest  hold  on  the  word  "  God  " 
by  giving  it  the  sense  of  the  Eternal  Power  not  our- 
selves, which  makes  for  righteousness,  so  we  shall  get 
the  best  hold  on  many  expressions  of  Jesus  by  re- 
ferring them,  though  they  include  more,  yet  primar- 
ily and  pointedly  to  his  "  secret,"  and  to  the  happi- 
ness which  this  contained.  Bread  of  life,  living 
water,  these  are,  in  general,  Jesus,  Jesus  in  his  whole 
being  and  in  his  total  effect ;  but  in  especial  they  are 
Jesus  as  offering  his  secret.  And  when  Jesus  says : 
"  He  that  eateth  me  shall  live  by  me !  "  we  shall  un- 
derstand the  words  best  if  we  think  of  his 
secret. 

And  so  again  with  the  famous  words  to  the  woman 
by  the  well  in  Samaria :  "  Whosoever  drinketh  of  this 
water  shall  thirst  again,  but  whosoever  drinketh  of 
the  water  that  I  shall  give  him  shall  never  thirst,  but 
the  water  that  I  shall  give  him  shall  be  in  him  a  fount 
of  water  springing  up  unto  everlasting  life."  These 
words,  how  are  we  to  take  them,  so  as  to  reach  their 
meaning  best  ?  What  distinctly  is  this  "  water  that 
I  shall  give  him  ?  "  Jesus  himself  and  his  word,  no 
doubt ;  yet  so  we  come  but  to  that  very  notion,  which 


218  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

Jeremy  Taylor  warns  us  against  as  vague,  of  getting 
Christ.  The  Bishop  of  Gloucester  will  tell  us,  per- 
haps, that  it  is  "  the  blessed  truth  that  the  Creator 
of  the  universe  is  a  Person,"  or  the  doctrine  of  the 
consubstantiality  of  the  Eternal  Son.  But  surely 
it  would  be  a  strong  figure  of  speech  to  say  of  thcso 
doctrines,  that  a  man,  after  receiving  them,  could 
never  again  feel  thirsty !  See,  on  the  contrary,  how 
the  words  suit  the  secret:  "He  that  loveth  his  life 
shall  lose  it,  and  he  that  hateth  his  life  in  this  world 
shall  keep  it  unto  life  eternal."  This  "  secret  of 
Jesus,"  as  we  call  it,  will  be  found  applicable  to  all 
the  thousand  problems  which  the  exercise  of  conduct 
daily  offers ;  it  alone  can  solve  them  all  happily,  and 
may  indeed  be  called  "  a  fount  of  water  springing  up 
unto  everlasting  life."  And,  in  general,  wherever 
the  words  life  and  death  are  used  by  Jesus,  we  shall 
do  well  to  have  his  "  secret  "  at  hand ;  for  in  his 
thoughts,  on  these  occasions,  it  is  never  far  off. 

And  now,  too,  we  can  see  why  it  is  a  mistake,  and 
may  lead  to  much  error,  to  exhibit  any  series  of 
maxims,  like  those  of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  as 
the  ultimate  sum  and  formula  into  which  Christian- 
ity may  be  run  up.  Maxims  of  this  kind  are  but 
applications  of  the  method  and  the  secret  of  Josus; 
and  the  method  and  secret  are  capable  of  yet  an  in- 
finite number  more  of  such  applications.  Chris- 
tianity is  a  source;  no  one  supply  of  water  and 
refreshment  that  comes  from  it  can  be  called  the  sum 
of  Christianity. 


THE  TESTIMONY  OF  JESUS  TO  HIMSELF.      219 
5. 

A  method  of  inwardness,  a  secret  of  self-renounce- 
ment;— but  can  any  statement  of  what  Jesus  brought 
be  complete,  which  does  not  take  in  his  mildness?  To 
the  representative  texts  already  given  there  is  cer- 
tainly to  be  added  this  other :  "  Learn  of  me  that  I 
am  mild  and  lowly  in  heart,  and  ye  shall  find  rest 
unto  your  souls !  "  Shall  we  attach  mildness  to  the 
method,  because,  without  it,  a  clear  and  limpid  view 
inwards  is  impossible  ?  Or  shall  we  attach  it  to  the 
secret? — the  dying  to  faults  of  temper  is  a  part, 
certainly,  of  dying  to  one's  ordinary  self,  one's  life 
in  this  world.  Mildness,  however,  is  rather  an  ele- 
ment in  which,  in  Jesus,  both  method  and  secret 
worked ;  the  medium  through  which  both  the  method 
and  the  secret  were  exhibited.  We  may  think  of  it 
as  perfectly  illustrated  and  exemplified  in  his  answer 
to  the  foolish  question,  "  Who  is  the  greatest  in  the 
kingdom  of  heaven  ?  " — when,  taking  a  little  child 
and  setting  him  in  the  midst,  he  said :  "  Whosoever 
receives  the  kingdom  of  God  as  a  little  child,  the 
same  is  the  greatest  in  it."  Here  are  both  inward  ap- 
praisal and  self-renouncement ;  but  what  is  most  ad- 
mirable is  the  "  sweet  reasonableness,"  the  exquisite, 
mild,  winning  felicity,  with  which  the  renouncement 
and  the  inward  appraisal  are  applied  and  conveyed. 
And  the  conjunction  of  the  three  in  Jesus, — the 
method  of  inwardness,  and  the  secret  of  self-renounce- 
ment, working  in  and  through  this  element  of  mild- 
ness,— produced  the  total  impression  of  his  "  epiei- 


220  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

keia,"  or  sweet  reasonableness ;  a  total  impression  in- 
effable and  indescribable  for  the  disciples,  as  also  it 
was  irresistible  for  them,  but  at  which  their  descrip- 
tive words,  words  like  this  "  sweet  reasonableness" 
and  like  "  full  of  grace  and  truth/'  are  thrown  out 
and  aimed. 

And  this  total  stamp  of  "  grace  and  truth,"  this 
exquisite  conjunction  and  balance,  in  an  element  of 
mildness,  of  a  method  of  inwardness  perfectly  han- 
dled and  a  self-renouncement  perfectly  kept,  was 
found  in  Jesus  alone.  Yet  what  is  the  method  of 
inwardness,  and  the  secret  of  self-renouncement, 
without  the  sure  balance  of  Jesus,  without  liis 
epieikeia?  Much, 'but  very  far  indeed  from  what 
he  showed  or  what  he  meant;  they  come  to  be  usc<l 
blindly,  used  mechanically,  used  amiss,  and  lead  to 
the  strangest  aberrations.  St.  Simeon  Stylitea  <>n 
his  column,  Lacordaire  flogging  himself  on  his  death- 
bed, are  what  the  secret  by  itself  produces.  The 
method  by  itself  gives  us  our  political  Dissenter, 
pluming  himself  on  some  irrational  "  conscientious 
objections,"  and  not  knowing  that  with  conscience  he 
has  done  nothing  until  he  has  got  to  the  bottom  of 
conscience,  and  made  it  tell  him  right.  Therefore 
the  disciples  of  Christ  were  not  told  to  believe  in  his 
method,  or  to  believe  in  his  secret,  but  to  believe  in 
him;  they  were  not  told  to  follow  the  method  or  to 
follow  the  secret,  but  they  were  told :  "  Follow  me  !  " 
It  was  only  by  fixing  their  heart  and  mind  on  him 
that  thev  could  learn  to  use  the  method  and  secret 


THE  TESTIMONY  OF  JESUS  TO  HIMSELF.       221 

right;  by  "feeding  on  him,"  by,  as  he  often  said, 
"  remaining  in  him." 

But  this  is  just  what  Israel  had  been  told  to  do  as 
regards  the  Eternal  himself.  "  I  have  set  the  Eternal 
always  before  me;  "  "  Mine  eyes  are  ever  toward  the 
Eternal ;  "  "  The  Eternal  is  the  strength  of  my  life ;  " 
"  Wait,  I  say,  on  the  Eternal !  "  ISTow,  then,  let  us 
go  back  again  for  a  little  to  Israel,  and  to  Israel's 
belief. 

6. 

We  have  seen  how  the  Jews,  at  the  coming  of 
Christ,  had  their  thoughts  full  of  a  grand  and  turbid 
phantasmagory ;  a  vision  of  God  judging  the  world. 
sending  his  Messiah  on  the  clouds  of  heaven,  taking 
vengeance  on  his  enemies,  restoring  the  kingdom  to 
Israel.  And  we  marked  the  line  of  texts  which  this 
expectation  followed :  from  the  "  Prophet  "  of  Moses 
to  the  victorious  "  Rod  out  of  the  stem  of  Jesse  "  of 
Isaiah,  and  thence  to  the  "  Messiah,"  the  "  Son  of 
Man,"  the  "  Son  of  God,"  of  the  Book  of  Daniel. 

But  there  was  another  line  of  texts  pointing  to  a 
servant  and  emissary  of  God,  besides  the  line  point- 
ing to  the  Lion  of  the  tribe  of  Judah,  the  princely 
and  conquering  Root  of  David.  It  stood  written : 
"  Behold  my  servant  whom  I  uphold,  mine  elect  in 
whom  my  soul  delighteth !  I  have  put  my  spirit 
upon  him ;  he  shall  declare  judgment  to  the  Gentiles. 
He  shall  not  strive  nor  cry,  nor  cause  his  voice  to  be 
heard  in  the  streets;  he  shall  declare  judgment  with 
truth.  He  shall  not  fail  nor  be  discouraged,  until  lie 


222  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

set  judgment  in  the  earth;  far  lands  wait  for  his 
law."  Who  is  this? 

And  again :  "  He  was  despised,  and  we  esteemed 
him  not ;  but  he  was  wounded  for  our  transgressions, 
he  was  bruised  for  our  iniquities.  All  we  like  sheep 
were  gone  astray,  we  were  turned  every  one  to  his 
own  way ;  and  the  Eternal  hath  laid  on  him  the 
iniquity  of  us  all.  And  he  made  his  grave  with  the 
wicked,  although  he  had  done  no  violence;  yet  it 
pleased  the  Eternal  to  bruise  him.  When  Thou  hast 
made  his  soul  an  offering  for  sin,  he  shall  see  his  seed, 
he  shall  prolong  his  days,  and  the  pleasure  of  the 
Eternal  shall  prosper  in  his  hand ;  he  shall  see  of  the 
travail  of  his  soul  and  shall  be  satisfied!"  Who, 
again,  is  this  ? 

Is  it  the  "  Prophet  "  like  great  Moses  ?  Is  it  the 
brilliant  "  Branch  "  out  of  the  root  of  Jesse,  smiting 
the  earth  with  the  rod  of  his  mouth,  and  with  the 
breath  of  his  lips  slaying  the  wicked?  with  his  do- 
minion from  the  one  sea  to  the  other,  all  things  falling 
down  before  him,  all  nations  serving  him ;  with  his 
seed  to  endure  forever,  and  his  throne  as  the  days  of 
heaven  ?  This  Branch  it  was,  whom  Israel  iden- 
tified with  the  Messiah  coming  in  the  clouds  of 
heaven  to  give  the  kingdom  to  the  saints  of  the  Most 
High,  with  the  Son  of  Man  sitting  on  the  throne  of 
his  glory.  Was  the  afflicted  and  lowly  servant  at 
the  same  time  the  Branch,  and  therefore  the  Mes- 
siah, the  Son  of  God,  and  the  bringer  of  the  king- 
dom ?  Israel  never  identified  them.  Here  and  there 
ho  made  guesses  and  snatches  at  the  truth ;  momen- 


THE  TESTIMONY  OF  JESUS  TO  &IMSELF.      223 

tary  elevations  of  it  there  were,  faint  approaches  to- 
wards connecting  the  two  ideals,  isolated  tentatives; 
but  the  Jewish  people  at  large  had  never  grasped  the 
idea  of  the  identification,  and  it  had  never  been  so 
presented  to  them  that  they  could  grasp  it. 

And,  as  we  have  already  said,  it  was  an  extraor- 
dinary novelty,  although  the  profound  and  the  only 
true  solution  of  Israel's  wonderful  history,  when  this 
identification  was  by  Jesus  boldly  made.  "  A  little 
while,"  the  Jews  were  saying,  "  and  the  God  of 
heaven  shall  set  up  a  kingdom  which  shall  never  be 
destroyed."  * — "  Nay,"  answered  Jesus,  "  the  time 
is  fulfilled  and  the  kingdom  of  God  is  at  hand ! 
change  the  inner  man,  and  believe  the  good  news !  " 
— "  But,"  said  the  Jews,  "  Elias  must  first  come." 
Jesus  replied :  "  Elias  is  come  already !  John  the 
Baptist,  my  precursor,  who  preached  a  change  of  the 
inner  man  as  I  do." — "  But  there  shall  be  a  time  of 
trouble,"  the  Jews  urged,  "  such  as  never  was  since 
there  was  a  nation  to  that  time;  abomination  and 
desolation ;  a  fiery  stream  issuing  from  before  the 
throne  of  the  Ancient  of  days ;  one  like  the  Son  of 
Man  coming  with  the  clouds  of  heaven !  "  f  Jesus 
beheld  the  fierce  and  impracticable  people  before  him, 
with  their  inevitable  future :  "  Fear  not,"  he  an- 
swered mournfully,  "  where  the  carcass  is,  there  will 
the  eagles  be  gathered  together !  soon  enough  you  will 
have  the  affliction  such  as  was  not  from  the  beginning 
of  the  world  to  this  time,  the  Son  of  Man  coming, 

*  Dan.  ii.  44. 

t  Dan.  xii.  1,  11  ;  vii.  10,  13. 


22  i  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

Jerusalem  encompassed  with  armies,  abomination 
and  desolation,  not  one  stone  of  the  Temple  left  on 
another." — "But  the  judgment  shall  sit!"  said  the 
Jews,  "  and  at  that  time  the  people  shall  be  deliv- 
ered, every  one  that  shall  be  found  written  in  the 
book!" — To  the  outward  crisis,  or  world-judgment 
of  Jerusalem's  ruin,  shall  correspond,  Jesus  answered, 
an  inward  judgment,  the  new  crisis  of  conscience. 
"  The  hour  is  coming,  and  now  is,  when  the  dead 
shall  hear  the  voice  of  the  Son  of  God;  and  they  who 
hear  shall  live.  Every  one  that  is  of  the  truth  hear- 
eth  my  voice ;  the  word  that  I  speak,  the  same  shall 
judge  him." — "  But  the  righteous,"  the  Jews  said, 
"  shall  awake  to  everlasting  life!  "  — "  If  a  man  keep 
my  word,"  answered  Jesus,  "  he  shall  never  see 
death;  but  it  shall  be  in  him  a  fount  of  water,  spring- 
ing up  unto  everlasting  life." — "  But  God's  Mes- 
siah," finally  rejoined  the  Jews,  "  shall  smite  the 
earth  with  the  breath  of  his  mouth!  his  throne  $//<//' 
endure  forever,  and  his  dominion  shall  be  from  the 
one  sea  to  the  other;  the  Gentiles  shall  be  given  to 
him!" — "  Ye  know  not  what  spirit  ye  are  of,"  said 
Jesus:  "He  is  mild  and  lowly  in  heart;  he  must 
suffer  many  things  and  be  rejected  of  his  generation. 
Except  a  corn  of  wheat  fall  into  the  ground  and  die, 
it  abideth  alone,  but  if  it  die  it  bringeth  forth  much 
fruit;  and  I,  if  I  be  lifted  up  from  fhr  eartli,  iriJl 
draw  all  men  unto  me."  Then,  turning  to  the  dis- 
ciples: "  Fear  not,  little  flock,  for  it  id  your  Father's 
good  pleasure  to  give  you  the  kingdom!  And  othrr 
sheep  I  have,  not  of  this  fold!  they  also  shnll  be 


THE  TESTIMONY  OF  JESUS  TO  HIMSELF.      225 

brought;  and  there  shall  be  one  fold,  one  shepherd." 
By  a  line  like  this  did  Jesus  identify  the  two 
ideals, — the  ideal  of  popular  Aberglaubc  and  his  own. 
And  this  is  why  the  phrases  of  the  popular  Aber- 
(jlaube  come  so  often  from  his  lips;  he  was  forever 
translating  it  into  the  sense  of  the  higher  ideal,  the 
only  sense  in  which  it  had  truth  and  grandeur.  It 
\vas  hopeless  that  the  Jews  should  go  along  with  him. 
The  best  of  his  disciples  went  along  with  him  but 
imperfectly,  and  popular  Christianity  has  fallen  far 
behind  the  best  of  his  disciples.  u  The  hour  is  com- 
ing, and  now  is,  when  the  dead  shall  hear  the  voice 
of  the  Son  of  .Man,  and  they  who  hear  shall  live," — 
tins  saying  could  not  lift  the  Jews  out  of  their  Aber- 
glaube  into  the  ideal  of  Jesus,  with  its  new  meaning 
for  the  words  life  and  death.  But  neither  has  it 
lifted  popular  Christianity,  which  out  of  this  and 
other  like  sayings  has  fashioned  for  itself  an  Aber- 
ghuibe  precisely  corresponding  to  that  of  the  Jews. 

Yet  Jesus  could  not  but  use  the  dominant  phrases 
of  the  Jewish  religion,  if  he  was  to  talk  to  the  Jew- 
ish people  about  religion  at  all.  And  we  have  now 
seen  that  he  did  use  them,  and  how.  And  this  leads 
us  farther,  and  explains  his  way  of  using  such  words 
as  the  CJiriftt,  the  Son  of  Man,  the  Son  of  God.  For, 
as  the  Jews  were  always  talking  about  the  Messiah, 
so  they  were  always  talking,  we  know,  about  God. 
And  they  believed  in  God's  Messiah  after  their  no- 
tion of  him,  because  they  believed  in  God  after  their 
notion  of  him: — but  both  notions  were  wrong.  AU 
their  aspirations  were  now  turned  towards  the  Mes- 
15 


LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

siah;  whoever  would  do  them  good,  must  first  change 
their  ideal  of  the  Messiah.  But  their  ideal  of  God's 
Messiah  depended  upon  their  notion  of  God.  This 
notion  was  now  false,  like  their  ideal  of  the  Mes- 
siah ;  but  once  it  had  been  true,  or,  at  least,  true 
comparatively; — once  Israel  had  had  the  intuition  of 
God,  as  the  Eternal  that  loveth  righteousness.  And 
the  intuition  had  never  been  so  lost  but  that  it  was 
capable  of  being  revived.  To  change  their  danger- 
ous and  misleading  ideal  of  God's  Messiah,  therefore, 
and  to  make  the  Jews  believe  in  the  true  Messiah, 
could  only  be  accomplished  by  bringing  them  back 
to  a  truer  notion  of  God  and  his  righteousness.  By 
this  it  could,  perhaps,  be  accomplished,  but  by  this 
only. 

And  this  is  what  Jesus  sought  to  do.  He  sought 
to  do  it  in  the  way  we  have  seen,  by  his  "  method  '' 
and  his  "  secret."  First,  by  his  "  method  "  of  a 
change  of  the  inner  man: — "Do  not  bo  all  abroad. 
do  not  be  in  the  air,"  *  he  said  to  his  nation  ;  "  you 
look  for  the  kingdom  of  God ;  the  kingdom  of  God  is 
the  reign  of  righteousness,  God's  Avill  be  done  by  all 
mankind;  well,  then,  seek  the  kingdom  of  God!  flic 
kingdom  of  God  is  within  you."  And.  next,  by  his 
"secret"  of  peace: — "Renounce  thyself,  ^nd  tab- 
up  thy  cross  daily  and  follow  me.  ITo  that  loveth 
his  life  shall  lose  it,  and  he  that  liatcth  his  life  in 
this  world  shall  keep  it  unto  life  eternal."  And  the 
revolution  thus  made  was  so  immense,  that  the  !• 
in  this  new  kingdom  of  heaven,  this  realm  of  the 


THE  TESTIMONY  OF  JESUS  TO  HIMSELF.      227 

"  method  "  and  the  "  secret,"  was  greater,  Jesus  said, 
than  one  who,  like  John  the  Baptist,  was  even  great- 
est in  the  old  realm  of  Jewish  religion.  And  those 
who  obeyed  the  gospel  of  this  new  kingdom  came  to 
the  light:  they  had  joy;  they  entered  into  peace; 
they  ceased  to  thirst;  the  word  became  in  them  a 
fount  of  water  springing  up  unto  everlasting  life. 
But  these  were  the  admitted  tests  of  righteousness, 
of  obeying  the  voice  of  the  Eternal  who  loveth  right- 
eousness. "  There  ariseth  light  for  the  righteous, 
and  gladness  for  the  upright  in  heart ;  he  that  feareth 
the  Eternal,  happy  is  he  !  " 

Now,  the  special  value  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  is,  not 
that  it  exhibits  the  method  and  secret  of  Jesus, — for 
all  the  Gospels  exhibit  them, — but  that  it  exhibits 
the  establishment  of  them  by  means  of  Israel's  own 
idea  of  God,  cleared  and  reawakened.  The  argu- 
ment is :  "  You  are  always  talking  about  God,  God's 
word,  righteousness ;  always  saying  that  God  is  your 
Father,  and  will  send  his  Messiah  for  your  salva- 
tion. Well,  he  who  receives  me  shows  that  he  talks 
about  God  with  a  knowledge  of  what  he  is  saying; 
he  sets  to  his  seal  that  God  is  true.  He  who  is  of 
God  heareth  the  words  of  God  ;  every  one  that  heareth 
and  learneth  of  the  Father  cometh  unto  me ;  my  doc- 
trine is  not  mine  but  his  that  sent  me,  and  ye  have 
not  his  word  abiding  in  you,  because,  whom  he  hath 
sent,  him  ye  believe  not ;  if  any  one  will  do  God's 
will  he  shall  know  of  the  doctrine,  whether  it  be  of 
God."  This,  therefore,  is  what  Jesus  said : — "  I, 
whose  message  of  salvation  is,  //  a  man  keep  my  word 


228  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

lie  shall  never  see  death!  am  sent  of  God ;  because  he, 
who  obeys  my  saying,  Renounce  thyself  and  follow 
me!  shall  feel  that  he  truly  lives,  and  that  he  is  fol- 
lowing, therefore,  Israel's  God  of  -whom  it  is  said: 
Thou  wilt  show  me  the  path  of  life." 

The  doctrine  therefore  is  double: — Renounce  thy- 
self, the  secret  of  Jesus,  involving  a  foregoing  exer- 
cise of  his  method  ;  and  Follow  me,  who  am  sent  from 
God!  That  is  the  favorite  expression:  Sent  from 
God;  "  The  Father  hath  sent  me,  God  hath  sent  me." 
Xow  this  identified  Jesus  and  his  salvation  with  the 
Messiah  whom,  with  his  salvation,  the  Jews  were  ex- 
pecting. For  his  disciples,  therefore,  and  for  Chris- 
tendom after  them,  Jesus  was  and  is  the  Christ. 
This,  we  say,  his  disciples,  and  Christendom  after 
them,  have  comprehended  and  accepted:  his  identifi- 
cation of  himself  with  the  Messiah.  On  tho  other 
hand,  his  fruitful  and  profound  harmonization  of  the 
two  ideals — the  mild  and  suffering  Servant  of  God. 
and  the  Anointed  Prince  smiting  the  earth  with  the 
breath  of  his  mouth  and  giving  the  kingdom  to  the 
saints — was  not  understood  and  accepted.  Xever- 
theless,  the  turbid  Aberglaube,  with  which  the  Jews 
had  surrounded  this  latter  ideal,  was  by  the  disciples 
of  Jesus  borrowed,  and  transferred  wholesale  to 
Christ  and  Christ's  future  advent. 

Meanwhile,  as  with  the  word  God,  so  with  the 
word  Christ;  Jesus  did  not  give  any  scientific  defi- 
nition of  it, — such  as,  for  instance,  that  Christ  w.i<» 
the  Logos.  He  took  the  word  Christ  as  the  Jews  used 
it,  as  he  took  the  word  God  as  the  Jews  used  it;  and 


THE  TESTIMONY  OF  JESUS  TO  HIMSELF.      229 

as  he  amended  their  notion  of  God,  the  Eternal  who 
loveth  righteousness,  by  showing  what  righteousness 
really  was,  so  he  amended  their  notion  of  the  Mes- 
siah, the  chosen  bringer  of  God's  salvation,  by  show- 
ing what  salvation  really  was.  And  though  his  own 
application  of  terms  to  designate  himself  is  not  a 
matter  where  we  can  perfectly  trust  his  reporters  (as 
it  is  clear,  for  instance,  that  the  writer  of  the  Fourth 
Gospel  was  more  metaphysical  than  Jesus  himself),* 
yet  there  is  no  difficulty  in  supposing  him  to  have  ap- 
plied to  himself  each  and  all  of  the  terms  which  the 
Jews  in  any  way  used  to  describe  the  Messiah, — 
Messiah  or  Christ,  God's  Chosen  or  Beloved  or  Con- 
secrated or  Glorified  One,  the  Son  of  God,  the  Son 
of  Man;  because  his  concern,  as  we  have  said,  was 
with  his  countrymen's  idea  of  salvation,  not  with 
their  terms  of  designating  the  bringer  of  it.  But  the 
simplest  term,  the  term  which  gives  least  opening  into 
theosophy, — Son  of  Man, — he  certainly  preferred. 
So,  too,  he  loved  the  simple  expressions,  "  God  sent 
me,"  "  The  Father  hath  sent  me ;  "  and  he  chose  so 
often  to  say,  in  a  general  manner,  "  I  am  He," 
rather  than  to  say  positively,  "  I  am  Christ." 

And  evidently  this  mode  of  speaking  struck  his 
hearers.  We  find  the  Jews  saying :  "  How  long  dost 
thou  make  us  to  doubt?  if  thou  be  Christ,  tell  us 

*  It  is  to  be  remembered,  too.  that  whereas  Jesus  spoke  in 
Aramaic,  the  most  concrete  and  unmetaphysical  of  languages, 
he  is  reported  in  Greek,  the  most  metaphysical.  What  in  the 
mouth  of  Jesus,  was  the  word  which  comes  to  us  as  fiovofaitfc 
(only-begotten)  ?  And  yet.  in  the  Greek  record,  this  word  is 
not.  like  only-begotten  incur  translation,  reserved  for  Christ; 
See  Luke  ix.  38.' 


L>30  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

plainly!"  And  even  then  Jesus  does  not  answer 
point-blank,  but  prefers  to  say :  "  I  have  told  you, 
and  ye  believe  not."  Yet  this  does  not  imply  that 
he  had  the  least  doubt  or  hesitation  in  naming  him- 
self the  "Messiah,  the  Son  of  God;  but  only  that  his 
concern  was,  as  we  have  said,  with  (Jod's  ritihtcous- 

'  7  J 

ness  and  Christ's  Miration,  and  that  he  avoided  all 
use  of  the  names  (tod,  and  Christ,  which  might  give 
an  opening  into  mere  theosophical  speculation.  And 
this  is  shown,  moreover,  by  the  largeness  and  free- 
dom— almost,  one  may  say,  indifference — of  his  treat- 
ment of  both  names;  as  names,  in  using  which,  his 
hearers  were  always  in  danger  of  going  off  into  a 
theosophy  that  did  them  no  good  and  had  better  oc- 
cupy them  as  little  as  possible.  "  I  and  my  Father 
are  one!"  he  would  say  at  one  time;  and  "  My 
Father  is  greater  than  T !  "  at  another.  When  the 
Jews  were  offended  at  his  calling  himself  the  Son 
of  God,  he  quotes  Scripture  to  show  that  even  mere 
men  were  in  Scripture  called  Gods;  and  for  you,  he 
says,  who  go  by  the  letter  of  Scripture,  surely  this  is 
sanction  enough  for  calling  any  one.  whom  God  sends, 
the  Son  of  God!  He  did  not  at  all  mean  that  the 
Me-siah  was  a  son  of  God  merely  in  the  sense  in 
which  any  great  man  might  be  so  called  ;  but  he  meant 
that  these  questions  of  theosophy  were  useless  for  his 
hearers,  and  that  they  puzzled  themselves  with  them 
in  vain.  All  they  were  concerned  with  was,  that  he 
was  the  Messiah  they  expected,  sent  to  them  with 
>alvation  from  God. 

Tt  is  the  same  when  Jesus  says:    "Before  A  bra- 


THE  TESTIMONY  OF  JESUS  TO  HIMSELF.      231 

ham  was,  I  am !  "  He  was  baffling  his  countrymen's 
theosophy,  showing  them  how  little  his  doctrine  was 
meant  to  offer  a  field  for  it.  "  Life,"  he  means,  "  the 
life  of  him  who  lays  down  his  life  that  he  may  take 
it  again,  is  not  what  you  suppose;  your  notions  of 
everlasting  life  are  all  false,  and  with  your  present 
notions  you  cannot  discuss  theology  with  me ;  follow 
me !  "  So,  again,  to  the  Jews  in  the  rut  of  their 
traditional  theology,  and  haggling  about  the  Son  of 
David ; — Jesus,  they  insisted,  could  not  be  the  Christ, 
because  tlic  Christ  was  the  Son  of  David.  Jesus 
answers  them  by  the  objection  that  in  the  Psalms 
(and  the  Scripture  cannot  be  broken!)  David  calls 
the  Christ  his  Lord ;  and  "  if  he  call  him  Lord,  how 
is  lu>  then  his  son  ?  "  The  argument  as  a  serious 
argument  is  perfectly  futile ;  the  King  of  Israel  is 
going  out  to  war,  and  what  the  Psalmists  really  sing 
is :  "  The  Eternal  saith  unto  the  king's  majesty, 
Thou  shall  conquer!"  St.  Peter  in  the  Acts  gravely 
uses  the  same  verse  to  prove  Jesus  to  be  Christ: 
"  God,"  says  he,  "  tells  my  Lord,  Sit  tliou  upon  my 
right  hand !  Yet  David  never  went  up  into  heaven." 
And  this  is  exactly  of  a  piece  with  St.  Paul's  proving 
salvation  to  be  by  Christ  alone,  from  seed,  in  the 
promise  to  Abraham,  being  in  the  singular,  not  the 
plural.  It  is  merely  false  criticism  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, such  as  the  Jews  were  full  of,  and  of  which  the 
Apostles  retained  far  too  much.  But  the  Jews  were 
full  of  it,  and  therefore  the  objection  of  Jesus  was 
just  such  an  objection  as  the  Jews  would  think 
weighty.  He  used  it  as  he  might  have  used  a  crux 


232  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

about  personality  or  consubstantiality  with  the  Bish- 
ops of  Winchester  or  Gloucester; — to  baffle  and  put 
to  rout  their  false  dogmatic  theology,  to  disenchant 
them  with  it  and  make  them  cast  it  aside  and  come 
simply  to  him.  "  See,"  he  says  to  the  Jewish  doc- 
tors, "  what  a  mess  you  make  of  it  with  your  learn- 
ing, and  evidences,  and  orthodox  theology;  with  the. 
wisdom,  of  your  wise  men  and  the  understanding  of 
i/our  prudent  men!  You  can  do  nothing  with  them, 
your  arms  break  in  your  hands;  fling  the  rubbish 
away,  and  throw  yourselves  upon  my  method  and  se- 
cret,— upon  me!  Believe  that  the  Father  hath  sent 
me;  he  that  receiveth  me  receiveth  Him  that  sent 
me.  If  any  man  will  do  His  will,  he  shall  know 
of  the  doctrine  whether  it  be  of  God,  or  whether  I 
have  invented  it !  " 

And  no  grand  performance  or  discovery  of  a  man's 
o\vii  to  bring  him  thus  to  .joy  and  peace,  but  an  at- 
tachment! the  influence  of  One  full  of  grace  and 
truth!  An  influence,  which  we  feel  we  know  not 
how,  and  which  subdues  us  we  know  not  when ; 
which,  like  the  wind,  blows  where  it  lists,  passes  here, 
and  does  not  pass  there !  Once  more,  then,  we  come 
to  that  root  and  ground  of  religion,  that  element  of 
awe  and  gratitude  which  fills  religion  with  emotion, 
and  makes  it  other  and  greater  than  morality, — the 
not  ourselves.  Wo  did  not  make  the  order  of  con- 
duct, or  provide  that  happiness  should  belong  to  it, 
or  dispose  our  hearts  to  it.  "  The  preparation  of  the 
heart  in  man  is,"  a*  Israel  said,  "  from  the  Eternnl  !  " 
We  did  not  make  the  "  grace  and  truth  "  of  Jesus 


THE  TESTIMONY  OF  JESUS  TO  HIMSELF.      £33 

provide  that  happiness  should  belong  to  feeling  them, 
and  dispose  our  hearts  to  feel  them.  "  No  man  can 
come  to  me,"  as  Jesus  said,  "  except  the  Father  which 
sent  me  draw  him !  "  So  the  revelation  of  Christ  in 
the  New  Testament,  like  the  revelation  of  the  God  of 
Israel  in  the  Old,  is  the  revelation  of  "  the  Eternal, 
not  ourselves,  which  makes  for  righteousness."  It  is 
like  it,  and  has  the  same  power  of  religion  in  it. 

7. 

Now,  then,  we  see  what  the  doctrine,  "  I  came  forth 
from  God,"  really  means.  We  see  how  far  it  has 
any  likeness  with  that  doctrine  of  the  Godhead  of  the 
Eternal  Son,  for  which  our  two  bishops  are  so  anx- 
ious to  do  "  something."  We  see  how  far  the  pseudo- 
scientific  language  of  our  creeds,  about  persons,  and 
substance,  and  godhead,  and  coequal,  and  coeternal, 
and  created,  and  begotten,  and  proceeding,  has  any- 
thing at  all  to  do  with  what  Jesus  said  or  meant.  We 
see  how  impossible  it  is  that  one  should  concede  to  our 
clerical  friends  what  they  assume  to  be  beyond  dis- 
pute : — that  the  so-called  Athanasian  Creed  "  takes 
the  facts  of  Christian  doctrine,  and  just  arranges 
them  sentence  after  sentence."  We  see  how  wide  of 
the  mark  is  that  philosophical  clergyman,  who  writes 
to  the  "  Guardian  "  that  "  Our  Lord  unquestionably 
annexes  eternal  life  to  a  right  knowledge  of  the  God- 
head," in  imagining  that  when  Jesus  said,  "  This  is 
life  eternal,  to  know  Thee  the  only  true  God,  and 
Jesus  Christ  whom  thou  hast  sent,"  Jesus  had  in  view 


234:  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

anything  at  all  like  the  "  facts  "  which  the  Athana- 
sian  Creed  "  arranges,  sentence  after  sentence."  But 
we  see  more  than  this.  We  see  how  much  a  very  com- 
mon use  of  the  word  faith,  which  gives  rise  to  false 
notions  like  that  of  this  clergyman,  needs  amending. 
For  it  is  constantly  assumed  that  there  is  an  oppo- 
sition between  faith  and  reason  ;  and  that  those,  whom 
Christ  calls  to  believe  in  him,  he  calls  to  receive  a  doc- 
trine puzzling  to  the  reason,  but  which,  if  adopted, 
will  gradually  become  clear.  It  is  obvious  how  well 
this  notion  of  faith  suits  the  recommenders  of  such 
doctrine  as  that  which  the  Athanasian  Creed  "  ar- 
ranges, sentence  after  sentence,"  which  is  certainly 
very  puzzling  to  the  reason.  But  this  is  of  the  es- 
sence of  faith,  it  is  said : — to  take  on  trust  what  per- 
plexes the  reason.  Only  adopt  the  doctrine  which 
perplexes  the  reason,  be  a  Christian,  and  afterwards 
"  you  shall  know  of  the  doctrine  whether  it  be  of 
God."  And  with  this  is  connected  what  is  so  often 
said  in  the  Bible  about  "  receiving  the  kingdom  of 
God  as  a  little  child,"  about  "  babes  seeing  what  is 
hidden  from  the  wine  and  prudent."  The  unlettered 
believer  is,  in  fact, — according  to  this  version  of 
what  the  Bible  means  to  say, — represented  in  the 
Bible  as  a  better  judge  about  a  thing  which  perplexes 
the  reason  than  the  philosopher.  And  this  explains 
the  disdain  with  which  the  possessors  of  gospel  truth, 
as  it  is  called,  are  apt  to  treat  art  and  literature  and 
science.  These  happy  men  are  supposed  to  have,  by 
faith,  a  certainty  in  matters  perplexing  in  the  highest 
degree  to  the  reason,  which  the  vaunted  exercise  of  the 


THE  TESTIMONY  OF  JESUS  TO  HIMSELF.       235 

reason  can  never  attain  to.  And  as  with  faith  in 
Christ,  so  with  faith  in  God:  it  is  taking  on  trust 
something  perplexing  to  the  reason.  Texts  like, 
"  They  that  seek  the  Eternal  understand  all  things," 
and,  "  I  am  wiser  than  the  aged  because  I  keep  Thy 
commandments,"  mean,  that  we  are  better  off  and 
see  clearer  than  men  of  study  and  experience,  if,  in 
spite  of  its  puzzling  the  reason,  we  accept  in  faith, 
and  they  do  not,  some  truth  like  the  Bishop  of  Glou- 
cester's "  blessed  truth  that  the  God  of  the  universe 
is  a  Person." 

oSTo  one  has  more  insisted  on  this  opposition  be- 
tween faith  and  reason  than  a  writer  whom  we  can 
never  name  but  with  respect, — Dr.  Newman.  "  The 
moral  trial  involved  in  faith,"  he  says,  "  lies  in  the 
submission  of  the  reason  to  external  realities  partially 
disclosed."  And  again :  "  Faith  is,  in  its  very  na- 
ture, the  acceptance  of  what  our  reason  cannot  reach, 
simply  and  absolutely  upon  testimony."  But  surely 
faith  is,  in  its  very  nature,  (with  all  respect  be  it 
spoken!)  nothing  of  the  kind;  else  how  could  Christ 
say  to  the  Jews :  "  If  I  tell  you  the  truth,  why  do  ye 
not  believe  meiy  Surely  this  implies  that  faith, 
instead  of  bring  a  submission  of  the  reason  to  what 
puzzles  it,  is  rather  a  recognition  of  what  is  perfectly 
clear,  if  we  will  attend  to  it.  We  cannot  always  at- 
tend, all  of  us ;  and  here  is  the  not  ourselves  in  the 
matter,  "  the  grace  of  God."  But  attention,  cleav- 
ing, attaching  one's  self  fast  to  what  is  undeniably 
true, — that  is  what  the  faith  of  Scripture,  "  in  its 
very  nature,"  is;  and  not  the  submission  of  the  rea- 


236  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

son  to  what  puzzles  it,  or  the  acceptance,  simply  and 
absolutely  upon  testimony,  of  what  our  reason  cannot 
reach.  And  all  that  the  Bible  says  of  bringing  to 
naught  the  wisdom  of  the  wise,  and  of  receiving  the 
kingdom  of  God  as  a  little  child,  has  nothing  what- 
ever to  do  with  the  believers  acceptance  of  some 
dogma  that  perplexes  the  reason ;  it  is  aimed  at  those 
who  sophisticate  a  very  simple  thing,  religion,  by  im- 
porting into  it  a  so-called  science  with  which  it  has 
nothing  to  do.  Jewish  theological  learning,  the  >\  - 
tern  of  divinity  of  the  Jewish  hierarchy,  who  did  not 
know  how  simple  a  thing  righteousness  really  was. 
and  who,  when  simple  souls  saw  it  in  Christ  and  were 
drawn  to  it,  cried  out,  "  This  people  that  knowetli  not 
the  laws  are  cursed  !  "  it  was  at  these,  and  at  what- 
ever resembles  these,  that  Christ  aimed  the  words 
about  receiving  the  kingdom  of  God  as  a  little  child. 
And  the  "  marvellous  work  and  wonder  "  about  the 
saving  truth  which  the  simple  receive  is,  not  that, 
being  difficult  to  the  reason,  it  is  yet  got  hold  of  by 
the  unlettered  and  not  by  the  wise;  but  that,  being 
so  simple,  it  should  yet  be  so  immense,  important,  in- 
dispensable; and  that,  being  so  immense,  important 
indispensable,  it  should  yet  so  often  be  followed  by 
quite  unlettered  people  and  neglected  by  such  very 
clever  ones.  They  are  attending  to  other  things, — 
things  which  do  task  the  reason  and  intelligence,  and 
in  which  the  unlettered  have  no  skill  and  no  voice; 
these  things,  however,  are,  at  most,  only  one  fourth 
of  life.  And  this  absurdity — for  such  it  really  is—- 
we  see  every  day; — people  attending  to  the  dillicnlt 


THE  TESTIMONY  OF  JESUS  TO  HIMSELF.      237 

science  of  matters  where  the  plain  practice  they  quite 
let  slip.  How  many  people  will  be  now  busy  with 
Mr.  Darwin's  new  book,  so  admirably  ingenious,  on 
the  natural  history  of  the  emotions,  who  yet  are  al- 
ways using  their  own  emotions  in  the  worst  possible 
manner!  They  are  eager  to  know  how  their  emo- 
tions arose,  how  these  came  to  express  themselves  as 
they  do ;  yet  there  the  emotions  now  are,  and  have 
for  a  long  time  been,  and  the  first  thing  for  any  sane 
man  is,  to  make  a  proper  use  of  them,  and  to  know 
how  to  make  a  proper  use  is  not  difficult ; — but  all 
this  we  never  think  of,  but  investigate- zealously  how 
they  arose !  Such  persons  are  just  like  those  learned 
inquirers  the  Cynic  laughed  at,  who  were  so  busy 
about  the  strayings  of  Ulysses,  so  inattentive  to  their 
own. 

And  Israel's  greatness  was  that  he  was  so  impa- 
tient of  trifling  of  this  kind,  of  being  busy  with  one 
fourth  of  life,  while  the  three  fourths,  conduct,  was 
forgotten.  And  Israel  boldly  said :  "  They  that 
seek  the  Eternal  understand  all  things;  "  that  is,  they 
are  occupied  with  conduct,  righteousness,  which  truly 
is,  as  we  have  seen,  at  least  three  fourths  of  life,  and 
which  Israel  thought  the  whole  of  it.  They  have  a 
hold  on  three  fourths  of  life,  while  it  may  be  that 
their  great,  clever,  and  accomplished  neighbors  have 
a  hold  on  only  one  fourth,  or  part  of  one  fourth  of 
life.  Which  is  the  solid  and  sensible  man,  which 
understands  most,  which  lives  most?  Compare  a 
Methodist  day-laborer  with  some  dissolute,  gifted, 
brilliant  grandee,  who  thinks  nothing  of  him ! — but 


238  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

the  first  deals  successfully  with  nearly  the  whole  of 
life,  while  the  second  is  all  abroad  in  it.  Compare 
some  simple  and  pious  monk,  at  Rome,  with  one  of 
those  frivolous  men  of  taste  whom  we  have  all  seen 
there ! — each  knows  nothing  of  what  interests  the 
other ;  but  which  is  the  more  vital  concern  for  a  man : 
conduct,  or  arts  and  antiquities? 

Nay,  and  however  false  his  science  and  Biblical 
criticism,  the  believer  who  applies  the  method  and 
secret  of  Jesus  has  a  width  of  range  and  surencss  of 
foothold  in  life,  which  even  the  best  scientific  and 
literary  critic  of  the  Bible,  who  applies  them  not,  i< 
without ;  because  the  first  is  right  in  what  affects 
three  fourths  of  life,  and  the  second  in  what  affects 
but  one  fourth,  or  even  but  one  eighth.  Each  has  a 
secret  of  which  the  other,  who  has  no  experience  of  it, 
does  not  know  the  value ;  but  the  value  of  the  learned 
man's  secret  is  ridiculously  least.  This,  I  say,  is 
the  very  glory  and  marvel  of  the  religion  of  the  true 
Israel,  and  what  makes  this  religion,  as  Jesus  called 
it,  "  the  good  news  to  the  poor!  "  that  it  covers  nearly 
the  whole  of  life,  and  yet  is  so  simple. 

The  only  right  contrast,  therefore,  to  set  up  In- 
tween  faith  and  reason  is,  not  that  faith  grasps  what 
i>  too  hard  for  reason,  but  that  reason  does  nut,  like 
faitli,  attend  to  what  is  at  mice  so  great  and  *n  simple. 
The  difficulty  about  faith  is,  to  attend  to  what  is  very 
simple  and  very  important,  but  liable  to  be  pushed  by 
more  showy  or  tempting  matters  out  of  sight;  the 
marvel  about  faith  is,  that  wha*  i^  ?o  simple  should 
be  so  all-sufficing,  so  necessary,  and  so  often  ncg- 


THE  TESTIMONY  OF  JESUS  TO  HIMSELF.      yai) 

lecied.  And  faith  is  neither  the  submission  of  the 
reason,  nor  is  it  the  acceptance,  simply  and  absolutely 
upon  testimony,  of  what  reason  cannot  reach.  Faith 
is :  "  the  being  able  to  cleave  to  a  power  of  goodness 
appealing  to  our  higher  and  real  self,  not  to  our 
lower  and  apparent  self." 


8. 


So  we  see  how  unlike  is  Christ's  own  doctrine  of 
his  being  the  Son  of  God  to  the  difficult  doctrine  of 
the  Godhead  of  the  Eternal  Son,  as  the  Athanasian 
Creed  "  arranges  it,  sentence  after  sentence,"  and  in 
the  form  in  which  our  bishops  want  to  "  do  some- 
thing "  for  it ;  as  unlike  as  the  original  revelation  to 
Israel  of  the  Eternal  that  loveth  righteousness  is  to 
"  the  blessed  doctrine  that  the  God  of  the  universe  is 
a  Person."  And  we  see  how  the  clergymen  who 
write  to  the  "  Guardian  "  deceive  themselves,  when 
they  imagine  that  it  is  to  these  doctrines  of  our  bish- 
ops that  Christ  "  unquestionably  attaches  eternal 
life,"  and  how  they  are  led  into  this  error  by  having 
more  of  turn  for  abstruse  reasoning  than  of  literary 
experience.  They  are  not  conversant  enough  with 
the  many  different  ways  in  which  men  think  and 
speak,  so  as  to  be  able  to  distinguish  rightly  between 
them,  and  to  perceive  that  the  Bible  is  literature; 
and  that  its  words  are  used,  like  the  words  of  common 
life  and  of  poetry  and  eloquence,  approximately,  and 
not  like  the  terms  of  science,  adequately. 

And  if  they  fall  into  mistakes  about  words  applied 


240  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

to  the  Father  and  the  Son,  by  thus  making  them 
scientific,  how  much  more  do  they  fall  into  mistakes 
when  they  extend  this  treatment  to  words  applied  to 
the  Holy  Spirit.  We  have  seen  how  the  word 
Pneuma,  just  by  reason  of  its  inward  and  infinite 
character,  was  much  employed  by  Jesus  for  his 
method  of  inwardness  and  of  deliverance  from  bind- 
ing traditions  and  formulas;  and  how,  since  Holy 
Ghost  has  become  to  us  a  formula,  just  as  God  and 
righteousness  were  to  the  Jews,  to  get  the  force  of 
Christ's  use  of  the  word  "  Pneuma,"  we  ought  to  re- 
translate the  word  for  ourselves,  and  to  call  it,  for  a 
time  at  any  rate,  rather  influence,  intuition,  or  some 
such  name. 

For  it  was  thus  that  Jesus  himself  used  it. 
When  Jesus  was  going  away,  above  all,  and  his  dis- 
ciples were  to  be  thrown  on  themselves  and  left  to 
use  his  method  of  inwardness  more  deeply  and  thor- 
oughly, not  having  him  to  go  to, — then  they  would 
find,  he  said,  a  new  power  come  to  their  help ;  a  power 
of  insight  such  as  they  had  never  had  before,  and 
which  was  none  of  their  making,  but  came  from  God 
as  Jesus  did,  and  said  nothing  of  itself,  but  only  what 
God  said  or  Jesus  said ;  a  "  Paraclete,"  or  reinforce- 
ment working  in  aid  of  God  and  Jesus:  even  the 
Spirit  of  Truth.  While  Jesus  was  with  them,  the 
disciples  had  lived  in  contact  with  aletlicia,  or  real- 
ity ;  and  they  were  promised  now  an  intuition  of  re- 
ality within  themselves. 

Now,  will  it  be  believed  that  the  Athan;i<i;m  Oeed, 
and  our  bishops,  and  the  clergymen  \vlio  \vritc  to  the 


THE  TESTIMONY  OF  JESUS  TO  HIMSELF.      241 

"  Guardian,"  arid  dogmatic  theology  in  general, 
should  have  imagined  that  Christ  here  meant  to  con- 
vey to  us  the  "  blessed  doctrine  "  that  this  Spirit  of 
truth,  too,  "  is  a  Person  ?  "  The  force  of  meta- 
physical talent  outrunning  literary  experience  could 
really,  we  say,  no  farther  go  !  The  Muse,  who  visited 
Hesiod  when  he  was  tending  his  sheep  on  the  side  of 
Helicon,  and  "  breathed  into  him  a  divine  voice,  and 
taught  him  the  things  to  come  and  the  former  things," 
might  every  bit  as  well  be  made,  with  much  display 
of  metaphysical  apparatus,  "a  Person."  The  influ- 
ence which  visited  Hesiod  was  a  real  one; — that  is  as 
much  metaphysics  as  we  can  without  error,  in  a  case 
of  this  sort,  apply.  Whoever  applies  more  falls  into 
absurdity. 

The  "  Spirit  of  truth,"  indeed,  which  rejoiced  the 
wise  poet  of  Ascra,  was  the  Muse  of  art  and  science, 
the  Muse  of  the  gifted  few,  the  Muse  who  brings  to 
the  ingenious  and  learned  among  mankind  "  a  forget- 
fulness,"  as  Hesiod  sings,  "  of  evils  and  a  truce  from 
cares."  It  was  the  same  Muse,  no  doubt,  who  visits 
the  Bishop  of  Gloucester  when  he  sits  in  his  palace, 
meditating  on  personality,  or  sometimes  perhaps,  in 
his  lighter  hours,  on  political  economy.  The  Para- 
clete that  Jesus  promised,  on  the  other  hand,  was  the 
Muse  of  righteousness;  the  Muse  of  the  workday, 
care-crossed,  toil-stained  millions  of  men, — the  Muse 
of  humanity.  To  all  who  live,  for  all  that  concerns 
three  fourths  of  life,  this  divine  Muse  offers  "  a  for- 
getfulness  of  evils  and  a  truce  from  cares."  That  is 
why  it  is  far  more  real,  and  far  greater,  than  the 


242  JuITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

Muse  of  Hesiod ;  not  from  any  metaphysical  person- 
ality. 

9. 

But  the  whole  centre  of  gravity  of  the  Christian 
religion,  in  the  popular  as  well  as  in  the  so-called  or- 
thodox notion  of  it,  is  placed  in  Christ's  having,  by 
his  death  in  satisfaction  for  man's  sins,  performed 
the  contract  originally  passed  in  the  Council  of  the 
Trinity,  and  having  thus  enabled  the  magnified  ami 
non-natural  Man  in  heaven,  who  is  the  God  of  the- 
ology and  of  the  multitude  alike,  to  consider  his  ju- 
tice  satisfied,  and  to  allow  his  mercy  to  go  forth  on  all 
who  heartily  believe  that  Christ  has  paid  tneir  debt 
for  them.  Now  we  have  seen  how  that  whole  struc- 
ture of  materializing  mythology,  which  the  Bible  is 
supposed  to  deliver,  and  in  which  this  conception  <>f 
the  Atonement,  as  it  is  called,  holds  the  central  place, 
drops  away  and  disappears  as  the  Bible  comes  to  be 
better  known.  The  true  centre  of  gravity  of  tli" 
Christian  religion  is  in  the  method  and  the  sccrd  «\' 
Jesus,  approximating,  in  their  application,  ever  closer 
to  the  epieikcia,  the  sweet  reasonableness  and  un- 
erring sureness,  of  Jesus  himself.  And  as  l!i" 
method  of  Jesus  led  up  to  his  secret,  and  his  secret 
was  dying  to  "  the  life  in  this  world  "  and  livinu  t<> 
"the  eternal  life,"  both  his  method  and  his  secret. 
therefore,  culminated  in  his  "perfecting''  on  the 
cross,  which  he  foresaw  and  foretold. 

The  miracle  of  the  corporeal  resurrection  ruled  the 
minds  of  those  who  have  reported  Christ's  sayings 


THE  TESTIMONY  OF  JESUS  TO  HIMSELF.      243 

for  us;  and  their  report,  how  he  foretold  his  death, 
cannot  always  be  entirely  accepted.  One  of  them 
alleges  him  to  have  foretold  it  by  pointing  to  his 
Ixxly  and  saying:  "  Destroy  this  temple,  and  in  three 
days  I  will  raise  it  up!  "  Now,  this  is  certainly  an 
instance  of  the  retrospective  pressure  exercised  on 
words  of  Jesus  by  the  established  belief  in  the  resur- 
rection, lie  had  said  of  the  Temple  at  Jerusalem: 
"  There  shall  not  be  left  of  it  one  stone  upon  an- 
other." He  had  said  of  himself  and  this  much-rev- 
erenced Temple :  "  There  standeth  here  One  greater 
than  the  Temple."  He  had  said  he  should  be  put 
to  death,  and  the  death  of  the  worst  malefactors,  cru- 
cifixion. He  had  said  that  this  should  happen  after 
he  had  worked  but  a  little  while  longer :  "  I  do  cures 
to-day  and  to-morrow,  and  the  third  day  I  shall  be 
perfected."  Nothing  more  was  needed.  The  mirac- 
ulous prediction  concerning  "  the  temple  of  his  body  " 
was  ready  to  the  miracle-writer's  hand !  Jesus  had 
said :  "  Destroy  this  temple  and  in  three  days  I  will 
raise  it  up !  " 

In  sayings  of  this  kind,  the  internal  evidence  is 
all-important.  Now,  the  sure  clew  of  internal  evi- 
dence to  follow,  in  tracing  any  words  of  Jesus  about 
his  death  and  rising  again,  is  the  clew  given  by  the 
ideal  of  the  stricken  Servant  of  God  in  the  fifty-third 
chapter  of  Isaiah.  This  ideal,  as  we  have  seen, 
Jesus  had  adopted  and  elevated  as  the  true  ideal  of 
Israel's  Saviour;  he  had  corrected  by  it  the  favorite 
popular  ideals  he  found  regnant.  And,  in  this  ideal 
of  the  stricken  Servant  of  God,  the  notion  of  sacri- 


244  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

fee  is,  that  this  lover  of  righteousness  falls  because  of 
a  state  of  iniquity  and  wickedness  which  he  had  no 
share  in  making,  and  as  the  only  remedy  for  it.  The 
notion  of  redemption  is,  that  by  endurance  to  the 
end  and  by  his  death  crowning  his  life,  he  establishes 
all  seekers  after  good  in  their  allegiance  to  good,  en- 
ables them  to  follow  it  and  to  reach  true  life  through 
it.  Finally,  the  notion  of  resurrection  is,  that  his 
death  makes  an  epoch  of  victory  for  him  and  his 
ean-e.  which  thenceforward  live  and  reign  indestruct- 
ibly. '  He  had  done  no  violence,  neither  was  any 
deceit  in  his  mouth  ;  he  was  bruised  for  our  iniquities, 
the  Eternal  hath  laid  on  him  the  iniquity  of  us  all ;  " 
— there  is  the  sacrifice.  "  With  his  stripes  wo  are 
healed;" — there  is  the  redemption.  But:  "When 
Thou  hast  made  his  soul  an  offering  for  sin,  ho  shall 
see  his  seed,  he  shall  prolong  his  days,  and  the  pleas- 
ure of  the  Eternal  shall  prosper  in  his  hand ;  " 
there,  at  the  end  of  it  all,  is  the  resurrection. 

And  just  these  stages  we  shall  find  again  in  Jesus. 
"  Which  of  you  convinceth  me  of  sin  ?  "  he  asked  the 
Jews;  nevertheless:  u  The  Son  of  Man  must  suffer 
many  things  and  be  rejected  of  this  generation ;  thr 
Son  of  Man  must  be  lifted  up:  "  —  there  is  the  sacri- 
fice. "  Kxeejit  a  grain  of  corn  fall  into  the  ground 
and  die,  it  abideth  alone;  the  Son  of  Man  came  \» 
give  his  life  a  ransom  for  many;  " — then-  is  tin 
domption.  But:  "  If  the  grain  of  corn  dio,  it  briiii? 
eth  forth  much  fruit;  I,  if  I  be  lifted  up  from  the 
earth,  will  draw  all  men  unto  me;  if  F  go  not  away 
the  Spirit  of  truth  will  not  come  unto  y..u.  but  if  1 


THE  TESTIMONY  OK  JESUS  TO  HIMSELF.      245 

depart  I  will  send  him  unto  you,  and  when  he  is  come 
he  will  convince  the  world  of  sin,  of  righteousness, 
and  of  judgment;  " — there,  there  is  the  resurrection 
and  triumph  ! 

The  use  by  Jesus  of  the  words  life  and  death  must 
on  no  account,  however,  be  limited  to  this  his  cruci- 
fixion and  after-triumph,  though  in  these,  no  doubt, 
his  dying  and  living  culminated.  Yet  both  here,  and 
always  in  his  use  of  them,  they  are  to  be  referred  to 
his  secret :  "  He  that  loveth  his  life  shall  lose  it,  and 
he  that  hateth  his  life  in  this  world  shall  keep  it  unto 
life  eternal ;  renounce  thyself,  and  take  up  thy  cross 
daily,  and  follow  Me !  "  Long  before  his  signal  Cru- 
cifixion Jesus  had  died,  by  taking  up  daily  that  cross 
which  his  disciples,  after  his  daily  example,  were  to 
take  up  also.  "  Therefore  doth  rny  Father  love  me," 
he  says,  "  because  I  lay  down  my  life  that  I  may  take 
it  again/'  He  had  risen  to  life  long  before  his 
crowning  Resurrection,  risen  to  life  in  what  he  calls 
"  my  joy"  which  he  desired  to  see  fulfilled  in  his 
disciples  also ;  "  my  joy,  to  have  kept  my  Father's 
commandment  and  abide  in  his  love." 

I^ay,  and  there  is  no  more  powerful  testimony 
to  Christ's  real  use  of  the  words  life  and  death,  than 
a  famous  text,  borrowed  from  Jewish  Aberglaubc, 
which  popular  Christianity  has  wrested  in  support 
of  its  tenet  of  a  physical  resurrection  at  the  Metaiikh'fl 
second  advent.  Whatever  we  may  think  of  the  nar- 
rative of  the  raising  of  Lazarus,  we  need  have  no  dif- 
ficulty in  believing  that  Jesus  really  did  say  to  the 
bnther  or  sister  of  a  dead  disciple:  "Thy  brother 


246  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 


rise  again  !  "  and  that  the  mourner  replied  :  "  I 
know  that  he  shall  rise  again  at  the  resurrection  of 
the  last  day."  For  the  answer  which  follows  has 
the  certain  stamp  of  Jesus  :  "  I  am  the  resurrection 
and  the  life  ;  he  that  believeth  on  me,  though  he  die, 
shall  live,  and  whosoever  liveth  and  believeth  on  mo 
shall  never  die."  Now,  Martha  believed  already  in 
the  resurrection  of  Jewish  and  Christian  Aberglaube 
—  the  resurrection  according  to  the  Book  of  Daniel 
and  the  Book  of  Enoch,  the  resurrection  of  the  last 
day,  when  "  they  that  sleep  in  the  dust  of  the  earth 
shall  awake,  some  to  everlasting  life,  and  some  to 
shame  and  everlasting  contempt."  But  Jesus  cor- 
rects her  Aberglaube,  by  telling  her  that  her  brother 
is  not  dead  at  all;  and  his  words,  out  of  which  tho 
story  of  the  miracle  very  likely  grew,  do  really  make 
the  miracle  quite  unnecessary.  "  He  that  has  be- 
lieved on  me  and  had  my  secret,"  says  Jesus, 
"  though  his  body  die  to  the  life  of  this  world,  still 
lives;  for  such  an  one  had  died  to  the  life  of  this 
world  already,  and  found  true  life,  life  out  of  him- 
self, life  in  the  Eternal  that  loveth  righteousness,  In- 
doing  so." 

Just  in  the  same  way,  again,  is  his  promise  to  see 
his  disciples  again  after  his  crucifixion  and  to  take 
up  his  abode  with  them,  Jesus  corrects,  for  those  who 
have  eyes  to  read,  he  corrects  in  the  clearest  and  most 
decisive  way,  those  very  errors  with  which  our  com- 
mon material  conceptions  of  life  and  death  have  made 
us  invest  his  death  and  resurrection.  "  Yet  a  little 
while,"  he  says,  "  and  the  world  seeth  me  no  more; 


THE  TESTIMONY  OF  JESUS  TO  HIMSELF.      24-7 

but  ye  see  me,  because  I  live,  and  ye  shall  live  too. 
Tie  that  hath  my  commandments  and  keepeth  them, 
he  it  is  that  loveth  me ;  and  him  that  loveth  me  I  will 
love,  and  will  manifest  myself  to  him."  Jude  nat- 
urally objects:  "How  is  it  that  thou  wilt  manifest 
thyself  to  us  and  not  to  the  world  ?  "  And  Jesus 
answers :  "  If  a  man  love  me,  he  will  keep  my  word, 
and  my  Father  will  love  him,  and  we  ivill  come  unto 
him  and  make  our  abode  with  him;  he  that  loveth 
me  not,  keepeth  not  my  word."  Therefore  the  mani- 
festation of  himself  he  speaks  of  is  nothing  external 
and  material.  It  is, — like  the  manifestation  of  God 
to  him  that  ordereth  his  conversation  right,  the  eter- 
nal life  and  joy  in  keeping  the  commandments, 
— it  is  the  life  for  the  disciples  of  Christ,  in  and  with 
Christ,  in  "  keeping  the  commandments  of  God ;  " 
those  commandments,  which  had  at  last  in  their  true 
scope  been  made  known  to  them,  through  Christ's 
method  and  through  his  secret. 


10. 


Thus,  then,  did  Jesus  seek  to  transform  the  im- 
mense materializing  Aberglaube  into  which  the  re- 
ligion of  Israel  had  fallen,  and  to  spiritualize  it  at  all 
points ;  while  in  his  method  and  secret  he  supplied  a 
sure  basis  for  practice.  But  to  follow  him  entirely 
there  was  needed  an  cpicikeia,  an  unfailing  sweet- 
ness and  an  unerring  perception,  like  his  own.  It 
was  much  if  his  disciples  got  firm  hold  on  his  method 
and  his  secret;  and  if  they  transmitted  fragments 


LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

enough  of  his  lofty  spiritualism,  to  make  it  in  the 
fulness  of  time  discernible,  and  to  make  it  at  once 
and  from  the  first  in  a  large  degree  serviceable. 
Who  can  read  in  the  Gospels  the  comments  preserved 
to  us,  both  of  disciples  and  of  others,  on  what  ho  said, 
and  not  feel  that  Jesus  must  have  known,  win  hi  he 
nevertheless  persevered  in  saying  them,  how  things 
like:  "  The  bread  which  I  will  give  is  my  flesh  for 
the  life  of  the  world,"  or:  "I  will  not  leave  you 
comfortless,  I  will  come  unto  you,"  would  be  misap- 
prehended by  those  who  heard  them  ?  " 

But,  indeed,  Jesus  himself  tells  us  that  he  knew 
and  foresaw  this.  With  the  promise  of  the  Spirit 
of  truth  which  should,  after  his  departure,  work  in 
his  disciples  first,  then  in  the  world,  and  which 
should  convince  the  world  of  sin,  of  righteousness, 
and  of  judgment,  and  finally  transform  it,  we  are  all 
familiar.  But  how  little  we  remark  the  impressive 
words,  uttered  to  the  crowd  around  him  only  a  little 
while  before,  and  of  far  wider  application  than  the 
reporter  imagined :  "  Yet  a  little  while  is  the  light 
with  you;  walk  while  ye  have  the  light,  lest  the 
darkness  overtake  you  unawares!  "  The  real  appli- 
cation cannot  have  been  to  the  unconverted  only ; — 
a  call  to  the  unconverted  to  make  haste  because  their 
chance  of  conversion  would  soon,  with  (1hrist's  de- 
parture, be  gone;  no,  converts  came  in  far  thicker 
after  Christ's  departure  than  in  his  life.  The  words 
are  for  the  converted  also;  it  is  as  if  Jesus  foresaw 
the  want  of  his  sweet  reasonableness  which  he  could 
not  leave,  to  help  his  method  and  his  secret  which 


THE  TESTIMONY  OF  JESUS  TO  HIMSELF.      249 

he  could  leave ; — as  if  he  foresaw  his  words  miscon- 
strued, his  rising  to  eternal  life  turned  into  a  physical 
miracle,  the  advent  of  the  Spirit  of  truth  turned  into 
a  scene  of  thaumaturgy,  Peter  proving  his  Master's 
Messiahship  from  a  Psalm  that  does  not  prove  it,  the 
great  Apostle  of  the  Gentiles  word-splitting  like  a 
pedantic  Rabbi,  the  most  beautiful  soul  among  his 
own  reporters  saddling  him  with  metaphysics ; — fore- 
saw the  growth  of  creeds,  the  growth  of  dogma,  and 
so,  through  all  the  confusion  worse  confounded  of 
councils,  schoolmen,  and  confessions  of  faith,  down 
to  our  own  twin  Bishops  of  Winchester  and  Glouces- 
ter bent  on  "  doing  something  "  for  the  honor  of  the 
Godhead  of  the  Eternal  Son! 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

THE    EAKLY    WITNESSES. 

OUE  object  in  this  essay  has  never  been  to  argue 
against  miracles.  Even  with  Lourdes  and  La  Salette 
before  our  eyes,  we  may  yet  say  that  miracles  are 
doomed ;  they  will  drop  out,  like  fairies  or  witch- 
craft, from  among  the  matters  which  serious  people, 
believe.  Our  one  object  is  to  save  the  revelation  in 
i  he  Bible  from  being  made  solidary,  as  our  Comtist 
friends  say,  with  miracles;  from  being  attended  to  or 
held  cheap  just  in  proportion  as  miracles  are  attended 
to  or  are  held  cheap. 

In  like  manner,  nay  far  more,  our  object  is  not, 
and  never  can  be,  to  pick  holes  in  the  apostles  and  re- 
porters of  Jesus.  Hut  much  which  they  say  cannot 
stand ;  our  one  object  is  to  hinder  people  from  mak- 
ing Jesus  solidary  with  this,  and  with  his  reporters' 
and  apostles'  character  for  infallibility.  To  this  ex- 
tent, and  to  this  only,  we  are  brought  at  moments 
into  collision  with  miracles,  into  collision  with  the 
disciples  of  Jesus  and  with  the  writers  of  the  New 
Testament.  We  have  to  show  that,  the  men  being 
what  and  when  and  whence  they  were,  the  miracles 
would  certainly  grow  up  for  them  around  and  in  the 
wake  of  Jesus. 

250 


THE  EARLY  WITNESSES.  251 

How  did  Christ's  words :  "  I  will  see  you  again, 
I  go  to  prepare  a  place  for  you !  "  grow  into  the 
legend — so  beautiful,  and  round  which  have  for  cen- 
turies gathered  such  sacred  feelings  and  aspirations, 
yet  a  legend — of  his  coporeal  resurrection  and  ascen- 
sion ?  How  ?  Why,  Herod's  first  words,  when  after 
the  execution  of  John  the  Baptist  he  heard  of  Jesus, 
were:  "  It  is  John  the  Baptist;  lie  in  risen  from  the 
dead!"  In  such  an  atmosphere  of  belief  were  the 
disciples  living,  when  their  loss  of  Jesus,  the  great- 
est loss  that  ever  befell  men,  happened.  All  his  dis- 
course, when  he  was  with  them,  had  run  on  life  and 
death, — apparent  death,  enduring  life;  and  how 
many  are  the  stories  of  the  survivors,  in  an  atmos- 
phere of  belief  like  that  of  those  Palestine  times,  re- 
fusing to  believe  in  the  death  of  a  head  even  far  ]<•>- 
precious  to  them,  full  of  reports  of  his  reappearance 
in  this  place  and  that  place,  feeding  themselves  on  the 
promise  of  his  triumphant  return  !  How  many  thou- 
sand at  this  moment,  in  Persia,  refuse  to  credit  the 
death  of  the  Bab,  their  Gate  of  life,  executed  some 
years  ago!  assert  that  he  will  return,  that  he  has  been 
seen,  that  they  have  seen  him ! 

But  the  reporters  of  Jesus  were  not  as  others ;  they 
were  infallible.  So  infallible  that  they  report  them- 
selves, when  Jesus  reappeared,  after  all  his  labors 
to  transform  and  spiritualize  for  them  the  old  Jew- 
ish ideal, — they  report  themselves  to  have  met  him 
with  the  inquiry :  "  Lord,  wilt  thou  at  this  time  re- 
store the  kingdom  to  Israel  ?  "  But  the  Holy  Ghost 
had  not  then  been  given  J  And  after  the  Holy  Ghost 


252  LITERATURE  AND  DO(iMA. 

was  given,  we  find  them  with  one  voice  assorting  that 
in  the  lifetime  of  that  generation  should  come 
Christ's  second  advent  and  the  end  of  the  world; 
Peter  falling  back  into  Judaism,  so  that  Paul  had  to 
withstand  him  to  the  face  because  he  vn\  to  be 
blamed,  and  Paul  himself  proving  salvation  to  be  by 
Jesus,  from  seed,  in  the  promise  to  Abraham,  being 
used  in  the  singular !  That  it  is  impossible  the  dis- 
ciples of  Jesus  should  have  been,  alone  of  all  the  dis- 
ciples in  the  world,  infallible,  that  it  is  begging  the 
question  to  say  they  were  infallible,  need  not  be  made 
out ;  it  is  conspicuous,  on  the  face  of  their  own  show- 
ing of  themselves,  that  they  were  not  infallible.  Ami 
well  it  is  that  it  should  be  so;  for  this  favorite  P 
estant  doctrine  of  the  infallibility  of  the  Biblr 
writers,  inherited,  indeed,  from  the  Fathers  alnnir 
with  that  of  the  infallibility  of  the  Church,  but  kepi 
and  extolled  by  Protestants  as  the  true  single  uiK-lmr 
to  ride  at,  whereas  the  other  was  rotten, — this  doc- 
trine involves  Christianity  in  dangers  quite  as  serious 
as  its  discarded  rival  does. 

But  it  was  not  for  nothing  that  the  Apostles  had 
lived  with  Jesus;  or  even,  in  the  case  of  a  great  re- 
ligious spirit  like  Paul,  lived  in  his  time,  lived  in  his 
country,  had  his  presrnrr  ;uul  words  near  and  fresh 
to  them.  And,  untrue  and  dtmirrmus  as  is  the  popu- 
lar Protestant  doctrine  of  the  plenary  inspiration  of 
the  Apostles,  making  them  infallible,  and  vouch- 
safed no  more  to  any  one  after  the  Apostles  were 
gone,  yet  it  rests  on  a  true  perception  of  the  vast 
•  listanoe  which  separates  them  t'l'-.m  :iftcr-writers  on 


THE  EARLY  WITNESSES. 

Christianity,  from  the  Fathers  as  from  Luther  ari<l 
Calvin,  all  alike.  This  they  owe  to  their  contact 
with  Jesus ;  or,  in  Paul's  case,  to  their  nearness  to 
him.  The  impression  of  him  was  too  fresh  and 
vivid,  his  method  and  secret  still  had  too  firmly  the 
prominence  he  had  given  them,  the  atmosphere  of  his 
sweet  reasonableness  still  hung  round  his  disciples 
too  much,  to  permit  of  the  deep  confusions  and  mis- 
understandings of  after-times.  There  is  no  pleasure 
in  proving  that  the  Apostles  sometimes  made  mis- 
takes ;  but  to  trace  in  the  Apostles  the  reproduction  of 
the  method  and  secret  of  Jesus  is  one  of  the  most  de- 
lightful of  tasks.  And  since  to  show  such  reproduc- 
tion of  Jesus  in  his  followers  throAvs  light  on  what 
we  have  said  of  Jesus  himself,  and  confirms  it,  wo 
will  permit  ourselves  to  do  this  very  briefly.  And 
we  will  show  it,  first  and  above  all,  in  the  case  of  the 
three  great  witnesses  to  him  in  the  New  Testament.— 
Peter,  Paul,  and  the  writer  who  is  called,  properly 
or  improperly,  St.  John. 

2. 

To  begin  with  St.  Peter.  The  First  Epistle  of  St. 
Peter  commends  itself  almost  as  certainly  as  the 
genuine  work  of  the  author  whose  name  it  bears,  as 
the  Second  Epistle  bespeaks  itself  the  contrary. 
And,  except  for  the  one  strange  passage  about  the 
spirits  in  prison  and  Xoah's  flood,  at  the  end  of  the 
third  chapter, — where  the  meaning  which  wns  in  the 
writer's  mind  is  probably  now  irrecoverable  l'«r  \\<, 


LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

— there  is  shed  over  this  whole  production  more,  per- 
haps, of  the  epieikeia,  or  what  we  call  the  sweet  rea- 
sonableness, of  Christ,  than  over  any  other  epistle 
we  possess.  Very  much  this  is  due  to  its  simplic- 
ity, to  the  unambitious  nature  of  its  topics  and  of  its 
treatment  of  them ;  because,  clearly,  the  application 
of  prophecy,  the  adjustment  of  the  old  ideal  of  Israel 
to  the  new,  the  management  of  the  ideas  of  life  and 
death,  of  justification,  and  the  like,:: — in  all  of  which 
the  epieikeia  of  Christ  himself  shone  forth  so  match- 
lessly,— are  much  harder  to  treat  with  the  winning 
simplicity  and  limpid  intuitiveness  which  make  the 
charm  of  epieikeia,  than  conduct  itself  is. 

And  conduct  is  what  this  epistle  is  concerned  with, 
alfnost  from  the  first  line  to  the  last.  "  Your  good 
conversation  in  Christ;  "  "  As  He  who  called  you  is 
holy,  be  ye  also  holy  in  all  your  conversation;" 
this  is  the  head  and  front  of  the  matter  with  the 
writer.  Holiness  is  but,  as  we  have  said,  a  deep 
and  finished  righteousness.  And  the  method  for  it 
is  the  method  of  Jesus — the  inward  man  awakened, 
conscience.  "Born  again  through  the  word  of  God 
that  liveth  and  abideth ;  "  "  The  hidden  man  of  the 
heart;'"  "Having  a  good  conscience;" — again  and 
again  this  word  "conscience,"  so  strange  to  the  Old 
Testament,  appears.  And  the  two  great  groups  of 
faults,  which  in  a  rough  way,  do  sufficiently  compre- 
hend all  conduct,  are  again,  as  they  were  by  Jesus, 
marked  as  the  matter  to  be  dealt  with : — faults  of 
t'-mpcr  ami  faults  of  sensuality.  "  Xot  conformed 
to  the  former  lusts  of  your  time  of  ignorance ;  "  "  The 


THE  EARLY  WITNESSES.  255 

time  past  may  suffice  us  to  have  wrought  the  will  of 
the  Gentiles,  having  walked  in  dissoluteness,  lusts, 
excess  of  wine,  revellings;  "  "  Abstain  from  fleshly 
lusts,  which  war  against  the  soul ;  "  "  Be  temperate, 
be  sober;  " — this  is  for  faults  of  sensuality.  "  Put- 
ting away  all  malice,  and  all  deceit,  and  insincerities, 
and  envies,  and  all  evil-speakings; "  "  Be  of  one 
mind,  feel  with  one  another,  love  as  brethren;  "  "  Be 
tender-hearted,  humble-minded;  "  "  The  incorrupti- 
ble of  that  mild  and  quiet  spirit  which  is,  in  the  sight 
of  God,  of  great  price ;  " — this  is  for  the  faults  of 
temper. 

So  far  the  "  method  "  of  Jesus ;  and  now  for  his 
"  secret "  of  self-renouncement,  of  dying  to  our  ap- 
parent self,  to  our  life  in  this  world.  "  Even  though 
ye  suffer  for  righteousness,  happy  are  ye !  "  "  For 
to  suffering  ye  are  called,  because  Christ  also  suffered 
for  our  sakes,  leaving  us  an  ensample  that  we  should 
follow  his  steps ;  "  "  As  Christ  suffered  in  the  flesh, 
arm  yourselves  likewise  with  the  same  mind,  for  he 
that  suffers  in  the  flesh  is  freed  from  sin;  "  "  Elected 
of  God  unto  obedience  and  sprinkling  with  the  blood 
of  Christ."  And  nowhere  does  the  joy,  which  with 
Christ  is  the  great  test  and  sanction  of  his  method 
and  secret,  come  out  fuller  and  stronger  than  in  this 
epistle.  "  But  ye  are  a  chosen  race,  a  royal  priest- 
hood, a  holy  nation,  a  peculiar  people,  to  tell  forth 
the  excellencies  of  Him  who  called  you  out  of  dark- 
ness into  his  marvellous  light!  " 

The  belief  in  the  bodily  resurrection  of  Christ,  and 
the  expectation  of  his  second  Advent  in  the  lifetime 


256  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

of  the  generation  then  living,  are  signal  supports  to 
the  writer's  mind.  But  our  popular  notion  of  the 
Atonement — Christ's  death  represented  as  a  satisfac- 
tion of  God's  offended  justice — does  not  yet  appear. 
The  governing  idea  of  the  fifty-third  chapter  of 
Isaiah,  adopted  by  Jesus  himself,  is  still  faithfully 
preserved.  Christ  died  for  his  people  "  to  redeem 
them  from  their  vain  conversation  delivered  by  tradi- 
tion ;  "  Christ  suffered,  "  in  order  that  we,  dying 
to  sins,  might  live  to  righteousness." 


3. 


Next  we  come  to  St.  Paul ;  but  elsewhere  *  we 
have  spoken  so  fully  of  St.  Paul's  theology  that  wo 
shall  be  very  brief  here.  Xeed  we  say  that  right- 
eousness is  its  ground-thought, — real  righteousness 
discerned  to  be  such  by  means  of  a  change  of  the 
inner  man  ?  "  Circumcision  is  nothing,  and  uncir- 
cumcision  is  nothing,  but  the  keeping  of  the  com- 
mandments of  God."  Righteousness  is  the  end  and 
aim.  Then,  in  the  words,  "  I  exercise  myself  to  have 
a  conscience  void  of  offence  towards  God  and  men  con- 
tinually," we  find  ourselves  in  the  method  of  Jesus. 
"  Let  every  man  prove  by  experience  his  own  work, 
and  then  shall  he  have  rejoicing  in  himself  alone  and 
not  in  another;"  "Prove  all  things  by  expcrinicc. 
keep  what  is  good ;  "  "  Prove  !>//  <  r/irricnce  what 
things  are  excellent;  "  "  Able  to  prove  by  experience 
what  is  that  good  and  perfect  and  acceptable  will  of 
*  See  St.  Paul  and  Protestantism. 


THE  EARLY  WITNESSES.  257 

God."  All  this  points  to  inward  appraisal,  the 
method  of  inwardness,  the  individual  conscience. 
Jesus  has  given  a  new  faculty  of  judging  things, 
light;  "  All  things  that  are  convicted  as  wrong  are 
shown  to  be  what  they  really  are  by  the  light:  for 
whatever  shows  things  to  be  what  they  really  are,  is 
light.  Wherefore  he  saith  :  Awake  thou  that  sleep- 
est,  and  arise  from  the  dead,  and  Christ  shall  give 
thee  light!  "  *  This  is  the  new  power  of  the  method 
of  Jesus,  of  conscience.  And  no  one  has  so  well  de- 
scribed as  St.  Paul  the  working  of  conscience  as  first 
set  going  by  Christianity.  "  Commending  ourselves, 
by  the  manifesting  of  the  reality,  to  every  human  con- 
science! "  "  The  hidden  things  of  a  man's  heart  are 
made  manifest"  he  says ;  "  all  that  he  hears  con- 
victs him,  sifts  him  to  the  bottom;  he  falls  on  his  face 
and  worships,  declaring  that  God  is  indeed  here !  " 
NOT  does  St.  Paul  fail  to  specify  again  and  again  the 
matter  wherewith  conscience  deals : — "  the  works  of 
the  flesh,"  as  he  calls  them ;  "  fornication,  unclean- 
ness,  dissoluteness,  idol-worship,  witchcraft,  hatreds, 
strife,  jealousy,  angers,  contentions,  divisions,  sects, 
envies,  drunkenness,  revellings,  and  such  like." 
"  They  are  manifest,"  says  he,  and  so  they  are ;  for 
they  roughly  cover  what  all  the  Corinthians,  to  whom 
he  wrote,  understood  by  conduct, — the  whole  body  of 
faults  connected  with  our  two  great  primary  instincts, 
faults  of  temper  and  faults  of  sensuality.  Elsewhere. 
to  the  Colossians,  he  even  seems  to  follow, — but  still 

*  Eph.  v.  13.  14.  The  Epistle  to  the  Ephesians  cannot  well 
be  altogether  Paul's,  but  it  is  full  of  Pauline  things,  and  this 
is  certainly  among  them. 

'7 


258  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

in  an  informal,  approximative  manner,  such  as  one 
uses  when  one  speaks  of  matters  so  familiar  that  to 
be  precise  is  pedantic, — he  even  seems  to  actually  fol- 
low this  division,  and  to  throw  faults  of  conduct  into 
two  groups  which  nearly  correspond  to  it.  Finally, 
to  the  works  of  the  flesh,  which  are  thus  evidently 
conduct  wrong,  he  opposes  the  fruits  of  the  Spirit, 
which  are  as  evidently  conduct  right:  "  Love,  joy, 
peace,  patience,  kindness,  goodness,  faith,  mildness, 
self-control."  By  following  the  inward  method  of 
Jesus,  he  tells  us,  we  perceive  that  here  is  the  sub- 
ject-matter of  righteousness,  that  this  is  what  keep- 
ing the  commandments  of  God  really  is. 

But  that  the  "  secret  "  of  Jesus  was  applied  to  this 
subject-matter  by  Paul,  who  can  doubt,  when  that 
secret  is  the  very  heart  of  Paul's  theology,  and  he 
came  to  view  the  crucifixion  and  resurrection  of 
Christ  altogether  in  connection  with  it  ?  We  would 
ask  the  student  of  the  Pauline  theology  to  read  again 
now,  by  the  light  of  what  we  have  in  this  essay  sai<l 
of  the  teaching  of  Jesus,  what  we  have  elsewhere  said 
of  Paul's  theology.*,  At  present  we  will  quote  a< 
Paul's  witness  to  the  secret  of  Jesus  but  these  threi> 
texts,  so  strong  and  plain  that  they  may  well  stand 
as  the  great  signal-marks  to  it :  "I  am  crucified  with 
Christ;  "  "  If  ye  die  with  him,  yc  -hall  also  live  with 
him ;  "  "  Always  bearing  about  in  the  body  the  dyiii'i 
of  the  Lord  Jesus,  that  the  life  also  of  Jesus  may  be 
manifested  in  our  body."  The  word  of  the  cross,  as 
he  calls  it,  is  his  pole-stnr.  By  the  method  and  exam- 
*  St.  Paul  ami  Protestantism,  Part  II. 


THE  EARLY  WITNESSES.  259 

pie  of  Jesus  he  has  become  aware  of  a  new  principle 
of  choosing  and  refusing,  of  going  after  things  and 
retiring  from  them.  This  principle  acts  always  in 
view  of  a  new  creature,  the  higher  or  real  self,  agree- 
ing with  the  "  will  of  God,"  conflicting  with  the  lower 
or  apparent  self,  or  the  wishes  of  the  flesh  and  of  the 
current  thoughts.  With  this  new  principle,  a  man's 
great  aim  is  now  "  to  put  off,  as  regards  our  former 
way  of  life,  the  old  man  that  perishes  by  compliance 
with  the  misleading  lusts;  *  and  to  put  on  the  new 
man,  that  after  God  is  created  in  righteousness." 
And  the  secret  for  this  is,  says  Paul,  being  crucified 
with  Christ,  or,  being  conformed  to  Christ's  death, 
or,  always  bearing  about  in  the  body  the  dying  of 
Jesus.  Paul  told  his  converts  he  was  "  in  travail  of 
them  till  Christ  be  fashioned  in  them," — the  entire 
Christ,  with  his  method,  secret,  and  sweet  reasonable- 
ness ;  but  the  great  stress  is  laid  on  the  "  secret,"  on 
dying  with  him,  because  this  was  Christ's  secret,  be- 
cause the  heart  of  the  matter  is  indeed  here.  And 
as  we  shall  do  well  to  have  the  "  secret  "  in  our  minds 
when  Jesus  talks  of  "  the  living  water,"  "  the  bread 
of  life,"  so  it  is  of  the  possession  of  this  same  secret 
that  Paul  is  specially  thinking,  when  he  talks  of 
"  counting  all  things  but  loss  for  the  excellency  of 
the  knowledge  of  Christ  Jesus  my  Lord;  "  or  when  he 
says :  "  God  forbid  that  I  should  glory,  save  in  the 
cross  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  wherein  the  world  is 
crucified  unto  me,  and  I  unto  the  world! " 

*  Tdv    Trahaibv   avOpurrov,    TOV   <pdEtp6fi£vov  (card    rdf 
oTarw. — Eph.  iv.  22. 


260  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

And  the  evidence  of  joy  which  testifies  to  the  sal- 
vation there  is  in  Jesus  and  in  his  secret,  and  the 
sense  of  "  not  ourselves  "  which  fills  this  joy  with 
awe  and  gratitude,  and  makes  it  religious  to  the  core, 
who  has  rendered  them  like  Paul  ?  "  Rejoice  ever- 
more! "  "Rejoice  in  the  Lord  always  again  I  say, 
rejoice!"  "Sorrowful,  yet  always  rejoicing!" 
"  As  .the  sufferings  of  Christ  abound  with  us,  so 
through  Christ  abounds  also  the  consolation."  "  The 
unsearchable  riches  of  Christ !  "  "  Who  shall  sep- 
arate us  from  the  love  of  Christ  ?  "  "  O  the  depth  of 
the  riches  both  of  the  wisdom  and  knowledge  of 
God !  "  "  It  is  God  that  worJceth  in  you,  both  to 
will  and  to  do,  of  his  good  power."  "  He  that  glo- 
rieth,  let  him  glory  in  the  Eternal!" 

All  this  is  in  Paul ;  and  there  is,  besides,  the  Aber- 
glaube  or  extra-belief  of  the  bodily  resurrection,  of 
Christ's  second  advent  during  the  lifetime  of  men 
then  living,  of  the  God  "willing  to  show  his  wrath 
and  to  make  his  power  known  with  vessels  of  wrath 
fitted  to  destruction ;  "  there  is  the  Rabbinical  logic, 
and  the  unsound  use  of  prophecy  and  of  the  Old  Tes- 
tament. For  popular  theology  the  writings  of  Paul 
are  a  fatal  rock;  because  they  are  the  products  of  a 
mind  that  was  constantly  growing,  and  because  they 
affect  the  forms  of  logic  and  science  which  a  com- 
plete notional  system  adopts,  while  their  true  char- 
acter and  force  is  that  of  an  approximative  experi- 
ence. So  the  mechanical  theory  of  inspiration  makes 
strange  work  indeed  with  Paul's  writings.  They 
are,  however,  to  those  who  can  use  them  right,  inex- 


THE  EARLY  WITNESSES.  201 

haustible,  not  only  in  their  power  of  animation  and 
edification,  but  also  in  their  illustration  of  the  genu- 
ine doctrine  of  Jesus. 


4. 


The  author  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  is  undoubtedly 
the  author  of  the  epistle  which  we  call  the  First 
Epistle  of  St.  John;  and  we  of  course  might  expect 
that  the  epistle  should  tally  with  the  gospel.  And 
so  it  does ;  only  it  upholds,  one  may  say,  in  one  most 
important  matter,  the  doctrine  of  Christ  against  the 
Fourth  Gospel  itself. 

We  have  seen  how  the  author  of  this  gospel  had 
a  leaning  to  metaphysics;  so  that  he  delights  M. 
Burnouf  by  showing  a  quite  Indo-European  turn  for 
making  God  into  a  metaphysical  source  of  things, 
such  as  is  not  unworthy,  perhaps,  of  being  called  a 
cosmic  unity ;  and  Jesus  into  the  Logos,  necessarily 
related,  by  some  lofty  metaphysical  law  or  other,  to 
this  cosmic  unity.  But  presently  came  the  Gnostics, 
still  more  full  of  the  Aryan  genius,  and  still  more 
admired  by  M.  Burnouf;  full  of  religion's  being  a 
knowing  rather  than  a  doing,  a  metaphysical  concep- 
tion rather  than  righteousness.  And,  in  fact,  as  we 
have  said  already,  it  may  well  seem  wonderful  that 
so  great  a  thing  as  religion  should  be  taken  up  with 
so  simple  a  thing  as  conduct ;  so  that  Christ  says  that 
he  who  receives  the  kingdom  of  God  as  a  little  child, 
— that  is,  who  simply  receives  it  as  concerned  with 
this  simple  matter, — the  same  is  the  greatest  in  that 


262  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

kingdom.  Christ  does  say  so,  however;  and  no  one 
who  had  lived  with  him,  and  felt  his  influence,  could 
doubt  it.  But  the  Gnostics,  who  had  not  lived  with 
him,  did  not  think  so;  and  they  naturally  imagined 
that  a  man  who  was  right  about  such  grand  things  as 
the  cosmic  unity,  and  the  pleroma,  and  emanationa 
and  personality,  and  consubstantiality,  and  the  like, 
must  have  true  religion  and  be  the  perfect  man.  And 
they  naturally  imagined,  too,  that  the  Christ,  the 
Saviour  of  the  world,  could  not  have  been  anything 
so  unmetaphysical,  so  unworthy  of  the  cosmic  unity, 
as  a  mere  man  with  flesh  and  blood ;  and  the  Docetae, 
or  Apparitionists,  taught  accordingly  that  Jesus  had 
been  an  apparition  or  phantom,  not  a  man  at  all. 
The  writings  of  the  Apostles  can  hardly  be  under- 
stood unless  we  know  that  very  often  they  are  allud- 
ing to  these  Gnostics  and  their  writings,  which  had  at 
the  time  a  great  success. 

Now,  the  author  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  had  a  turn, 
as  we  have  seen,  for  metaphysics.  But  a  man  who 
had  been  in  vital  contact  with  Jesus  and  aletJn-in 
knew  what  reality  was,  the  reality  of  Jesus,  too  well, 
to  carry  his  play  of  metaphysics  into  the  domain  of 
this.  And  by  a  sort  of  retribution,  glorious  indeed 
to  the  writer,  still  more  glorious  to  the  power  of 
Christ's  word,  the  two  great  points  of  the  document 
which  we  call  the  First  Epistle  of  St.  John  are  these : 
"  Jesus  Christ  came  in  the  flesh !  "  and,  "  He  that 
doeth  righteousness  is  righteous !  "  Jesus  is  no  met- 
aphysical phantom,  but  a  living  man  having  to  do 
with  conduct.  Religion  is  no  intellectualism,  but 


THE  EARLY  WITNESSES.  263 

righteousness.  Here  we  have  the  substratum  as 
Jesus  laid  it :  righteousness. 

And  we  have,  also,  the  "  method  "  of  conscience, 
which  tells  us  what  righteousness  is,  and  how  great 
it  is,  and  that  it  is  indeed  the  substratum.  "  Ye  have 
an  unction  from  the  Holy  One,  and  ye  know  all 
things;  the  unction  ye  received  from  him  abideth  in 
you,  and  ye  need  not  that  any  one  should  teach  you, 
but  as  his  unction  teacheth  you  of  all  things,  and  is 
true  and  is  no  lie,  and  as  it  teacheth  you  ye  will  abide 
in  it."  "  If  our  heart  condemn  us,  God  is  greater 
than  our  heart,  and  knoweth  all  things ;  if  our  heart 
condemn  us  not,  then  have  we  confidence  towards 
God." 

It  is  characteristic  of  this  beautiful  soul,  that  he 
does  not  go  into  detail  and  give  lists  of  faults.  He 
has  fixed  the  method,  conscience,  and  the  subject- 
matter  of  the  method,  righteousness;  and  that  is 
enough.  It  is  characteristic,  in  like  manner,  that 
he  states  and  restates  the  "  secret  "  of  Jesus  by  its 
positive  and  loveliest  side.  The  "  method  "  gives 
us  light,  and  the  "  secret "  gives  us  the  power  of 

iralkitig  in  the  light;  "  and,  "  If  we  walk  in  the 
light,  we  have  fellowship  one  with  another."  For 
to  live  by  dying  to  our  life  in  this  world  is  to  transfer 
the  natural  love  of  life  from  the  personal  self  to  the 
impersonal  self, — the  self  that  we  share  with  all 
other  men ;  so  that  to  die  to  one's  self  is  to  love  the 
brethren,  and  by  this  side  is  the  secret  of  Jesus  al- 
ways in  our  Epistle  presented.'  "  Let  us  love  one 


264  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

another."  "  We  know  that  we  have  passed  from 
death  to  life  because  we  love  the  brethren." 

And  it  agrees  with  what  we  have  seen  in  the 
Fourth  Gospel  of  his  ear  for  Christ's  profounder 
teaching,  that  in  this  writer's  Epistle,  too,  we  find 
the  proof  of  God,  of  Christ,  and  of  eternal  life,  made 
experimental,  rested  on  internal  evidence.  "  No 
man  hath  ever  yet  seen  God ;  if  we  love  one  another, 
God  dwelleth  in  us."  Therefore  we  must  not  at- 
tempt to  define  God  adequately,  or  in  a  way  that 
goes  beyond  our  experience, — to  say,  like  the  Bishop 
of  Gloucester:  God  is  a  Person! — but  we  define 
God  approximately,  according  to  our  actual  experi- 
ence of  him.  And  as  Jesus  had  said  of  this  infinite 
not  ourselves,  ''God  is  an  influence,"  so  our  Epistler 
says,  "  God  is  love."  And  he  says  indifferently, 
"  He  that  loveth  is  born  of  God,"  and  "  He  that  be- 
lioveth  that  Jesus  is  the  Christ  is  born  of  God,"  be- 
cause believing  that  Jesus  is  the  Christ  means, 
mainly,  admitting  the  authority  of  his  message  or 
secret,  and  his  secret  is:  Love  one  another!  Ami 
God's  evidence  for  his  Son  is  this:  "That  God  hath 
given  to  us  eternal  life,  and  this  life  is  in  his  Son." 
That  is :  in  righteousness  we  have  the  sense  of  being 
truly  alive,  and  through  the  method,  secret,  and 
sweet  reasonableness  of  Jesus,  and  only  through 
these,  we  get  at  righteousness. 

As  in  the  Fourth  Gospel,  and  indeed  in  all  the 
Gospels,  the  joy  which  is  the  signal  accompaniment 
of  life  is  in  this  Epistle  strongly  marked :  "  Tho<o 
things  write  I  unto  you,  that  your  joy  may  be  full." 


THE  EARLY  WITNESSES.  265 

And  the  not  ourselves,  that  element  wherein  religion 
has  its  being: — "Herein  is  love,  not  that  we  loved 
God,  but  that  he  loved  us;  we  love,  because  he  first 
loved  us !  "  As  we  did  not  make  the  law  of  right- 
eousness, so  we  did  not,  the  writer  means,  make 
"the  fulfilling  of  the  law,"  which  is  love;  it  arises 
in  us  from  the  way  the  not  ourselves  affects  us. 

In  our  Epistle,  the  Aberglaube  of  the  approach- 
ing second  advent  appears,  of  course,  prominently; 
not  so  that  of  Christ's  physical  resurrection.  On 
the  other  hand,  there  are  here  launched  phrases  des- 
tined to  rank  one  day  as  foremost  texts  for  the  doc- 
trine of  the  Atonement :  "  The  blood  of  Christ  Jesus 
cleanses  us  from  all  sin;"  "He  is  the  propitiation 
for  our  sins."  Xo  development  is  given  to  them. 
How  much  in  them  is  figure,  how  much  is  tenet  or 
the  commencements  of  tenet,  we  cannot  say ;  but  there 
they  are,  they  are  launched,  and  the  hint  is  given  to 
popular  religion  to  materialize  and  blunder  with. 


5. 


The  Epistle  of  St.  James  and  the  Epistle  to  the 
Hebrews,  though  not  of  equal  importance  with- the 
documents  we  have  been  reviewing,  suggest,  never- 
theless, two  or  three  remarks.  The  zeal  of  St.  James 
for  works  carries  us  back  to  Christ's  sentence :  "  If 
thou  wouldst  enter  into  life,  keep  the  command- 
ments!" it  is  the  voice  of  the  indestructible  sense  in 
the  writer  that  with  Jesus  righteousness  was  always 
the  end  and  aim.  The  opposition  to  St.  Paul,  of 


2G6  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

which  so  much  has  been  said,  does  not  really  exist; 
with  both  Apostles  the  aim  is  identical,  righteousness. 
Only  Paul  observed  righteousness  to  be  in  danger 
from  men  using  the  Jewish  law  as  a  kind  of  spell 
which  they  could  conjure  mechanically  with,  and 
therefore  he  elevated  the  faith  by  which  we  get  hold 
of  the  "  secret  "  of  Jesus,  of  the  "  doctrine  of  the 
cross."  James,  in  his  turn,  observed  righteousness 
being  in  danger  from  men  using  faith,  as  it  may 
easily  be  used,  as  a  spell  or  charm  to  conjure  mechan- 
ically with ;  and  therefore  he  elevated  works,  the 
being  a  doer,  not  an  idle  hearer  and  talker.  But  his 
noble  expression,  "  If  a  man  offend  in  one  point,  he 
is  guilty  of  all !  "  and  his  calling  the  law  which  he 
had  in  view,  "  the  law  of  liberty,"  proves  sufficiently 
that  in  no  unsound  sense  did  he  elevate  works,  as 
Paul  in  no  unsound  sense  elevated  faith. 

The  matter  whereon  the  "  secret  "  of  Jesus  finds 
exercise,  "  the  wishes  of  the  flesh  and  of  the  current 
thoughts,"  is  well  called  by  St.  James :  "  Our  pleas- 
ures which  war  in  our  members."  And  when  he 
goes  on  and  says :  "  Being  in  with  the  world  is  being 
out  with  God !  "  *  he  has  on  his  lips,  and  in  his 
thoughts  too,  the  very  words  of  the  "  secret  " :  "  He 
that  hateth  his  life  in  this  world  shall  keep  it  unto 
life  eternal."  For  he  means,  not,  as  many  readers 
suppose :  "  He  that  stands  well  with  the  world  stands 
ill  with  God;  "  he  means:  "  He  that  is  In  with  the 
pleasures  which  war  in  our  members,  is  out  with 
God." 

*  'H  qrtJia.  roii  Koopov  e^po  rov  Otov  eariv. — James  iv.  4. 


THE  EARLY  WITNESSES.  267 

But  we  must  not  dwell  at  length  on  this  writer,  in- 
structive as  he  is,  and  ill  as  he  has  been  often  judged. 
In  fineness  or  richness  of  spiritual  perception  his 
Epistle  may  be  inferior  to  that  of  others ;  without  un- 
due disparagement  of  him  we  can  own  this.  All  the 
more  remarkable,  as  a  testimony  to  what  was  chiefly 
striking  in  Christ,  is  his  signalling  and  extolling  that 
character  in  Christianity  into  which  fineness  of  per- 
ception enters  most :  epieikeia.  "  The  wisdom  froir. 
above,"  says  St.  James,  "  is  sweetly  reasonable/' 

It  is  more  difficult  to  limit  ourselves  in  speaking  of 
the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews.  Almost  alone  in  the 
Bible,  it  is,  like  later  theology,  a  notional  work  as 
distinguished  from  an  experimental  work;  that  is, 
instead  of  being  found  to  run  up,  at  last,  into  an  ex- 
perience of  the  Eternal  that  makes  for  righteous- 
ness, it  will  be  found  to  run  up  into  a  notion  of  Jesus 
being  the  Logos,  with  the  characters  of  the  Logos  as 
they  are  stated,  for  instance,  in  Philo;  and  of  this 
being  provable  from  Scripture  and  putting  an  end  to 
the  old  Jewish  dispensation.  And  because  of  this 
notional  character,  later  theology  has  so  much  used 
the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  and  is  really  in  great  part 
built  on  it.  For  later  theology  is  notional,  too ;  the 
ground-thesis  of  the  Bishop  of  Gloucester,  "  the 
blessed  truth  that  the  God  of  the  Universe  is  a  Per- 
son," is  just  such  a  notion  as  the  ground-thesis  of  the 
Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  that  Jesus  is  the  Logos  of 
Jewish-Alexandrian  philosophy.  Religion  has  noth- 
ing really  to  do  with  either  thesis,  and  that  is  fortu- 
nate ;  for  neither  thesis  is  demonstrable,  and  the  dem- 


208  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

onstrations  attempted  are  often  palpably  hollow. 
For  instance,  the  whole  of  the  first  chapter  of  th<- 
Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  is  an  allegation  of  text  after 
text  as  meaning  Jesus,  and  as  therefore  establishing 
the  writer's  thesis,  not  one  of  which  texts  does  really 
mean  Jesus.  The  seventh  chapter,  again,  is  out- 
tissue  of  clever,  learned  trifling,  such  as  we  might 
have  from  the  Bishop  of  Gloucester,  all  based  on  the 
false  assumption  that  "  Thou  art  a  priest  forever 
after  the  order  of  Melchisedek!  "  was  really  said  to 
Jesus,  whereas  it  was  not. 

Now,  just  because  of  this  notional  character,  the 
Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  could  not  have  been  Paul's ; 
for  Paul  goes  upon  experience,  not  notion.  Ami 
such  a  work  can  never  have  the  value  and  inter'  ~i 
of  Paul's  writings,  for  it  is,  in  truth,  all  in  the  air. 
But  a  man  who  puts  a  hollow  notion  as  the  basis  of 
his  theology  may  yet  in  treating  it  give  us  all  kind- 
of  real  and  valuable  experience ;  of  this  we  have  abun- 
dant examples  in  the  writings  of  theologians.  And 
so  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  is  full  of  beautiful 
things,  and  things  of  real  religious  experience;  but 
they  are  independent  of  the  ground-thesis  of  the 
Epistle,  their  value  has  another  source  than  the  value 
of  the  writer's  main  design,  and  indeed  is  often 
marred  by  it.  Their  value  is  as  reminiscences  of 
Jesus,  and  their  witness  to  Jesus  is  the  more  striking 
because  of  the  medium  where  they  appear.  To  have 
-urvived  and  appear  in  such  a  medium  they  must 
have  been  originally  very  strong. 

Tho  ?onse  that  in  righteousness  religion  begins  and 


THE  EARLY  WITNESSES.  269 

ends,  the  writer  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  has 
not;  like  the  Bishops  of  Winchester  and  Gloucester, 
he  has  lost  it.  He  talks  of  "  not  laying  again  the 
foundations,"  by  which  he  means  righteousness,  but 
"  going  on  unto  perfection,"  by  which  he  means  such 
things  as  the  doctrine  that  Christ  is,  like  the  Logos  of 
theosophy,  High  Priest,  and  as  the  demonstration 
about  Melchisedek.  All  this  is  of  the  same  order 
with  the  Bishop  of  Gloucester's  "  blessed  truth  that 
the  God  of  the  universe  is  a  Person,"  which  he  and 
his  friends  imagine  to  be  the  marrow  of  religion, 
whereas  in  truth  it  is  not  religion  at  all.  But  it  is 
remarkable  how  frequently  the  writer  of  our  Epistle 
has  the  word  of  the  "  method,"  conscience;  again  and 
again  it  recurs  with  him ;  nowhere  in  the  Bible  does 
it  appear,  within  equal  limits  of  space,  so  often.  The 
word  has  evidently  established  itself  and  become  a 
power. 

But  most  remarkable  is  the  testimony  of  this  writer 
to  the  "  secret."  His  view  of  the  sacrifice  of  Christ 
as  replacing  the  sacrifices  of  the  Jewish  law  is  all 
notional,  and  is  really  quite  independent  of  Christ's 
sacrifice  as  the  "  secret."  Yet  the  "  secret  "  ap- 
pears; and  in  phrases  so  striking  and  so  much  pro- 
founder  than  the  strain  of  this  writer's  argument, 
that  one  is  tempted  to  see  in  them  a  tradition  of 
words,  not  otherwise  preserved,  of  Jesus  himself. 
"  It  behooved  God,  in  bringing  many  sons  to  glory, 
to  make  the  leader  of  their  salvation  perfect  through 
suffering."  Christ  "  learned  obedience  from  the 
things  that  he  suffered,  and  being  perfected,  became 


270  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

the  author  of  eternal  salvation  to  all  who  obey  him." 
Christ,  like  mankind,  partook  of  flesh  and  blood,  "  in 
order  that  by  death  he  might  deliver  them  who 
through  fear  of  death  were  all  their  life  subject  to 
bondage."  This  is  precisely  the  "  secret ;  "  the  pain 
and  fear  and  gloom  of  dying  to  our  apparent  self, 
to  "  the  wishes  of  the  flesh  and  the  current  thoughts," 
are  so  great,  that  only  Jesus  and  his  "  secret,"  light- 
ing the  process  up  with  joy  by  showing  it  to  be  really 
life  not  death,  could  overcome  them,  and  could  en- 
able mankind  to  overcome  them.  In  like  manner 
the  noble  phrase,  "  without  shedding  of  blood  is  no 
remission,"  notional  and  unfruitful  as  is  its  use  in 
the  connection  where  our  author  employs  it,  is  in 
itself,  perhaps,  a  reminiscence  of  actual  words  of 
Jesus ;  certainly  it  is  a  reminiscence  of  his  "  secret." 
In  itself  it  ranks  with  the  beautiful  and  profound 
phrase  of  St.  Peter:  "He  that  suffers  in  the  flesh 
hath  ceased  from  sin." 

Finally,  in  the  ardor  for  martyrdom  which  fol- 
lowed the  Christian  Church  a  little  later,  in  the 
passion  for  seeking  out  this  kind  of  death,  courting 
it,  provoking  it  by  every  means  discoverable,  we  shall 
not  err  if  AVC  believe  that  here  again  is  visible  the 
trace  of  the  "  secret."  Assuredly  many  martyrs,  in 
the  temper  with  which  they  provoked  their  death, 
we're  false  to  the  epieikeia,  the  "  sweet  reasonable- 
ness," of  Jesus,  and  laid  themselves  open  to  that  sen- 
tence which  will  be  the  final  verdict  of  religious  his- 
tory on  Puritanism  also,  Puritanism  glorying  in  its 
resistances :  "  Though  I  give  my  body  to  be  burned, 


THE  EARLY  WITNESSES.  271 

and  have  not  charity,  it  profiteth  me  nothing."  And 
there  was  nothing  to  command  or  advise  the  repeti- 
tion, upon  every  disciple,  of  the  actual  bodily  execu- 
tion of  Jesus.  But  Jesus  had  enjoined  dying,  taking 
up  the  cross,  the  "  secret;  " — a  long  inward  travail, 
other,  and  often  much  harder,  than  being  once  for  all 
executed.  Paul  still  understood  what  Jesus  meant 
by  dying.  But  the  apostolic  age  passed;  and  now 
ihe  Christian  community  took  the  word  literally,  and 
Christians  vied  with  each  other  which  could  run 
fastest  to  the  place  of  execution.  The  wonderful 
spectacle  accelerated  Christianity's  conquest  of  the 
world ;  but  it  was  already  an  evidence  of  failure,  in 
some  sort,  to  follow  the  mind  of  Jesus  and  the  teach- 
ing of  his  greatest  apostles.  "  Yet  a  little  while  is 
the  light  with  you !  walk  while  ye  have  the  light,  lest 
the  darkness  overtake  you  unawares !  " 


CHAPTER   IX. 

ABEBGLAUBE    REINVADING. 

So  spoke  the  men  who  had  had  the  Light  with 
them  or  near  them.  Mistakes  they  made  and  could 
not  but  make.  But  they  still  knew  that  to  believe 
Jesus  to  be  the  Son  of  God  meant  to  receive  and 
apply  the  method  and  secret  of  Jesus ;  and  therefore 
their  word  is  the  Christian's  greatest  source  of  in- 
struction and  inspiration  after  the  word  of  Christ 
himself. 

But  miracles,  and  the  crowning  miracles  of  the 
Resurrection  and  Ascension,  to  be  followed  by  the 
second  Advent,  were  from  the  first  firmly  tixod  as 
parts  of  the  disciples'  belief.  "  Behold,  he  cometh 
with  clouds;  and  every  eye  shall  see  him,  and  they 
also  which  pierced  him,  and  all  kindreds  of  the  earth 
shall  wail  because  of  him !  "  As  time  went  on,  and 
Christianity  spread  wider  and  wider  among  the  mul- 
titudes, and  with  less  and  less  of  control  from  the 
personal  influence  of  Jesus,  Christianity  developed 
more  and  more  its  side  of  miracle  and  legend ;  until 
to  believe  Jesus  to  be  the  Son  of  God  meant  to  believe 
the  points  of  the  legend : — his  preternatural  concep- 
tion and  birth,  his  miracles,  his  descent  into  hell,  his 
bodily  resurrection,  his  ascent  into  heaven,  and  his 

272 


ABERGLAUBE  REINVADIXG.  273 

future  triumphant  return  to  judgment.  And  these 
and  like  matters  are  what  popular  religion  drew  forth 
from  the  records  of  Jesus  as  the  essentials  of  belief. 
These  essentials  got  embodied  in  a  short  formulary;- 
and  so  the  creed  which  is  called  the  Apostles'  Creed 
came  together. 

It  is  not  the  apostles'  creed,  for  it  took  more  than 
five  hundred  years  to  grow  to  maturity;  it  was  not 
the  creed  of  any  single  doctor  or  body  of  doctors,  but 
it  was  the  sort  of  summary  of  Christianity  which 
the  people,  the  Church  at  large,  would  naturally  de- 
velop; it  is  the  popular  science  of  Christianity. 
Given  the  alleged  charge:  "  Go  ye  and  teach  all  na- 
tions, baptizing  them  in  the  name  of  the  Father,  the 
Son,  and  the  Holy  Spirit,"  and  the  candidate  for 
baptism  would  naturally  come  to  have  a  profession 
of  faith  to  make  respecting  that  whereinto  he  was 
baptized  ;  this  profession  of  faith  would  naturally  be- 
come just  such  a  summary  as  the  Apostles'  Creed. 
It  contains  no  mention  of  either  the  "  method  "  or  the 
"  secret,"  it  is  occupied  entirely  with  external  facts ; 
and  it  may  be  safely  said,  not  only  that  such  a  sum- 
mary of  religious  faith  could  never  have  been  deliv- 
ered by  Jesus,  but  it  could  never  have  been  adopted 
as  adequate  by  any  of  his  principal  apostles,  by 
Peter,  or  Paul,  or  John.  But  it  is,  as  we  have  said, 
the  popular  science  of  Christianity. 

As  years  proceeded,  and  the  world  came  in  to 
Christianity,  and  the  world's  educated  people,  and 
the  educated  people's  Aryan  .ir^niiH.  with  its  turn  for 
making  religion  a  metaphysical  conception, — and  all 


274  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

this  in  a  time  of  declining  criticism,  a  time  when  tlK> 
possibility  of  true  scientific  criticism,  in  any  direc- 
tion whatever,  was  lessening  rather  than  increasing. 
— the  popular  science  was  too  rude  to  satisfy.  In- 
genious men  took  its  terms  and  its  data,  and  applied 
to  them  not  an  historical  criticism  showing  how  they 
arose,  but  abstruse  metaphysical  conceptions.  And 
so  we  have  the  so-called  Xieene  Creed,  which  is  the 
learned  science  of  Christianity,  as  the  Apostles' 
Creed  is  the  popular  science. 

And  how  this  learned  science  is  related  to  the 
Bible  we  shall  feel,  if  we  compare  the  religious  utter- 
ances of  its  doctors  with  the  religious  utterances  of 
the  Bible; — if,  for  instance.,  we  compare  with  the 
Psalms  the  Soliloquies  of  St.  Augustine,  a  truly 
great  and  religious  man;  and  this  man,  not  in  school 
and  controversy,  but  in  religious  soliloquy.  St.  Au- 
gustine prays:  "  Holy  Trinity,  superadmirable  Trin- 
ity, and  superinenarrable,  and  sii]>crinserutal>le,  ;ind 
superinaccessible,  superine*  mi  prehensible,  super  i  1 1 
telligible,  superessential,  superessentially  surpass!  i  it: 
all  sense,  all  reason,  all  intellect,  all  intelligence,  all 
essence  of  supercelestial  minds;  which  can  neither 
be  said,  nor  thought,  nor  understood,  nor  known,  even 
by  the  eyes  of  angels !  "  And  again,  more  prac- 
tically, but  still  in  the  same  style:  "O  three  co- 
equal and  coeternal  Persons,  one  and  true  God, 
Father  and  Son  arid  Holy  Ghost,  who  by  thyself  in- 
habitest  eternity  and  light  inaccessible,  who  hast 
founded  the  earth  in  thy  power,  and  rulest  the  world 
by  thy  prudence,  Holy,  Holy,  Holy,  Lord  God  of 


ABERGLAUBE  REINVADING.  275 

Sabaoth,  terrible  and  strong,  just  and  merciful,  ad- 
mirable, laudable,  amiable,  one  God,  three  persons, 
one  essence,  power,  wisdom,  goodness,  one  and  un- 
divided Trinity,  open  unto  me  that  cry  unto  Thee 
the  gates  of  righteousness!  " 

And  now  compare  this  with  the  Bible: — "  Teach 
me  to  do  the  thing  that  pleaseth  thee,  for  thou  art 
my  God !  let  thy  loving  spirit  lead  me  forth  into  the 
land  of  righteousness!"  That  is  Israel's  way  of 
praying!  that  is  how  a  poor  ill-endowed  Semite,  be- 
longing to  the  occipital  races,  upheld  by  the  Aryan 
genius  and  ignorant  that  religion  is  a  metaphysical 
conception,  talks  religion !  and  we  see  what  a  different 
thing  he  makes  of  it. 

But,  finally,  the  original  Semite  fell  more  and 
more  into  the  shade.  The  Aryas  came  to  the  front, 
the  notion  of  religion  being  a  metaphysical  concep- 
tion prevailed.  But  the  doctors  differed  in  their 
metaphysics;  and  the  doctors  who  conquered  en- 
shrined their  victorious  form  of  metaphysics  in  a 
creed,  the  so-called  Creed  of  St.  Athanasius,  which  is 
learned  science  like  the  Xicene  Creed,  but  learned 
science  which  has  fought  and  got  ruffled  by  fighting, 
and  is  fiercely  dictatorial  now  it  has  won ; — learned 
science  with  a  strong  dash  of  violent  and  vindictive 
temper.  So  we  have  the  three  creeds:  the  so-called 
Apostles'  Creed,  popular  science ;  the  Nicene  Creed, 
learned  science ;  the  Athanasian  Creed,  learned  sci- 
ence with  a  strong  dash  of  temper.  And  the  two 
latter  are  founded  on  the  first,  taking  its  data  just  as 
they  stand,  but  dressing  them  metaphysically. 


276  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

Now  this  first  Creed  is  founded  on  a  supposed 
final  charge  from  Jesus  to  his  apostles:  "  Go  ye  and 
teach  all  nations,  baptizing  them  in  the  name  of  the 
Father,  the  Son,  and  the  Holy  Ghost !  "  it  explains 
and  expands  what  Jesus  here  told  his  apostles  to  bap- 
tize the  world  into.  But  we  have  already  remarked 
the  difference  in  character  between  the  narrative,  in 
the  Gospels,  of  what  happened  before  Christ's  death 
and  the  narrative  of  what  happened  after  it.  For 
all  words  of  Jesus  placed  after  his  death,  the  inter- 
nal evidence  becomes  pre-eminently  important.  He 
may  well  have  said  words  attributed  to  him,  but  not 
then.  So  the  speech  to  Thomas :  "  Because  thou  hast 
seen  me  thou  hast  believed ;  blessed  are  they  who  have 
not  seen  and  yet  have  believed  !  "  may  quite  well  have 
been  a  speech  of  Jesus  uttered  on  some  occasion  dur- 
ing his  life,  and  then  transferred  to  the  story  of  the 
days  after  his  resurrection  and  made  the  centre  of 
this  incident  of  the  doubt  of  Thomas.  On  the  other 
hand,  again,  the  prophecy  of  the  details  of  Peter's 
death  *  is  almost  certainly  an  addition  after  tlir 
event,  because  it  is  not  the  least  in  the  manner  of 
Jesus;  what  is  in  his  manner,  and  what  he  had  in- 
deed said,  are  the  words  given  elsewhere:  "  Whither 
I  go  thou  canst  not  follow  me  now,  but  thou  shalt 
follow  me  afterwards."  So,  too,  it  is  extremely  im- 
probable that  Jesus  should  have  ever  charged  his 
apostles  to  "  baptize  all  nations  in  the  name  of  the 
Father,  the  Son,  and  the  Holy  Ghost."  There  is  no 
improbability  in  his  investing  them  with  a  very  high 
*  John  xxi.  18. 


ABERGLAUBE  REINVADING.  277 

commission.  He  may  perfectly  well  have  said: 
"  Whosesoever  sins  ye  remit,  they  are  remitted ; 
whosesoever  sins  ye  retain,  they  are  retained."  But 
it  is  almost  impossible  he  can  have  given  this  charge 
to  baptize  in  the  name  of  the  Father,  the  Son,  and 
the  Holy  Ghost ;  it  is  by  far  too  systematic,  and  what 
people  are  fond  of  calling  an  anachronism.  It  is  not 
the  least  like  what  Jesus  was  in  the  habit  of  saying, 
and  it  is  just  like  what  would  be  attributed  to  him  as 
baptism  and  its  formula  grew  in  importance.  The 
genuine  charge  of  Jesus  to  his  apostles  was,  almost 
certainly :  "  As  my  Father  sent  me,  even  so  send  I 
you,"  and  not  this.  So  that  our  three  creeds,  and 
with  them  the  whole  of  our  so-called  orthodox  the- 
ology, are  founded  upon  words  which  Jesus  in  all 
probability  never  uttered. 


2. 


We  may  leave  all  questions  about  the  Church,  its 
rise,  and  its  organization,  out  of  sight  altogether. 
Much  as  is  made  of  them,  they  are  comparatively 
unimportant.  Jesus  never  troubled  himself  with 
what  are  called  Church  matters  at  all;  his  attention 
was  fixed  solely  upon  the  individual.  His  apostles 
did  what  was  necessary,  as  such  matters  came  to  re- 
quire a  practical  notice  and  arrangement ;  but  to  the 
apostles,  too,  they  were  still  quite  secondary.  The 
Church  grew  into  something  quite  different  from 
what  they  or  Jesus  had,  or  could  have  had,  any 
thought  of.  But  this  was  of  no  importance  in  itself ; 


278  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

and  how  believers  should  organize  their  society  as 
circumstances  changed,  circumstances  themselves 
might  very  well  decide. 

The  one  important  question  was  and  is,  how  be- 
lievers laid  and  kept  hold  on  the  revelations  con- 
tained in  the  Bible ;  because  for  the  sake  of  these  it 
confessedly  is  that  all  churches  exist.  Even  the 
apostles,  we  have  seen,  did  not  lay  hold  on  them 
perfectly.  In  their  attachment  to  miracles,  in  the 
prominence  they  gave  to  the  crowning  miracles  of 
Christ's  physical  resurrection  and  second  advent,  they 
went  aside  from  the  saving  doctrine  of  Jesus  them- 
selves, and  were  sure — which  was  worse — to  make 
others  go  aside  from  it  ten  thousand  times  more. 
But  they  were  too  near  to  Jesus  not  to  have  been  able 
to  preserve  the  main  lines  of  his  teaching,  and  his 
way  of  using  words ;  and  they  did,  as  we  have  shown, 
preserve  them. 

But  at  their  death  the  immediate  remembrance  of 
Jesus  faded  away,  and  whatever  Alx'njlaube  the 
apostles  themselves  had  had  and  sanctioned  was  left 
to  work  without  check ;  and,  at  the  same  time,  the 
world  and  society  presented  conditions  constantly 
less  and  less  favorable  to  sane  criticism.  And  it  was 
then,  and  under  these  conditions,  that  the  dogma 
which  is  now  called  orthodox,  and  which  our  dog- 
matic friends  imagine  to  be  purely  a  methodical  ar- 
rangement of  the  admitted  facts  of  Christianity,  grew 
up.  We  have  shown  from  the  thing  itself,  by  putting 
the  dogma  in  comparison  with  the  genuine  teaching 
of  Jesus,  how  little  it  is  this ;  but  it  is  well  to  make 


ABERGLAUBE  REINVADING.  279 

clear  to  one's  self  also  (for  one  can)  from  the  circum- 
stances of  the  case,  that  it  could  not  be  this. 

For  dogmatic  theology  is,  in  fact,  an  attempt  at 
both  literary  and  scientific  criticism  of  the  highest 
order;  and  the  age  which  developed  dogma  had 
neither  the  resources  nor  the  faculty  for  such  a  criti- 
cism. It  is  idle  to  talk  of  the  theological  instinct, 
the  analogy  of  faith,  as  if  by  the  mere  occupation 
with  a  limited  subject-matter  one  could  reach  the 
truth  about  it.  It  is  as  if  one  imagined  that  by  the 
mere  study  of  Greek  we  could  reach  the  truth  about 
the  origin  of  Greek  words,  and  dogmatize  about 
them ;  and  could  appeal  to  our  supposed  possession, 
through  our  labors,  of  the  philological  instinct,  the 
analogy  of  language,  to  make  our  dogmatism  go  down. 
In  general  such  an  instinct,  whether  theological  or 
philological,  will  mean  merely,  that,  having  accus- 
tomed ourselves  to  look  at  things  through  a  glass  of  a 
certain  color,  we  see  them  always  of  that  color. 
What  the  science  of  Bible  criticism,  like  all  other 
sciences,  needs,  is  a  very  wide  experience  from  com- 
parative observation  in  many  directions,  and  a  very 
slowly  acquired  habit  of  mind.  All  studies  have 
tlio  benefit  of  these  guides,  when  they  exist,  and  one 
isolated  study  can  never  have  the  benefit  of  them  by 
itself.  There  is  a  common  order,  a  general  level,  an 
uniform  possibility,  for  these  things.  As  were  the 
geography,  history,  physiology,  cosmology,  of  the 
men  who  developed  dogma,  so  was  also  their  faculty 
for  a  scientific  Bible  criticism,  such  as  dogma  pre- 


LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

tends  to  be.  Xow,  we  know  what  their  geography, 
history,  physiology,  cosmology,  were. 

And  again,  as  one  part  of  their  scientific  Bible 
criticism,  so  the  rest.  We  have  seen  in  the  Bible 
writers  themselves  a  quite  uncritical  use  of  the  Old 
Testament  and  of  prophecy ;  now,  does  this  become 
less  in  the  authors  of  our  dogmatic  theology, — a  far 
more  pretentious  effort  of  criticism  than  the  Bible 
writers  ever  made, — or  does  it  become  greater?  It 
becomes  a  thousand  times  greater.  Xot  only  are 
definite  predictions  found  where  they  do  not  exist, — 
as,  for  example,  in  Isaiah's  "  I  will  restore  thy  judges 
as  at  the  first  "  is  found  a  definite  foretelling  of  the 
Apostles, — but  in  the  whole  Bible  a  secret  allegorical 
sense  is  supposed,  higher  than  the  natural  sense;  so 
that  Jerome  calls  tracing  the  natural  sense  an  eating 
dust  like  the  serpent,  in  modum  serpentis  terrain 
comedere.  Therefore,  for  one  expounder,  Isaiah's 
prophecy  against  Egypt,  "  The  Eternal  rideth  upon  a 
light  cloud,  and  shall  come  into  Egypt,"  is  the  flight 
into  Egypt  of  the  Holy  Family,  and  the  light  cloud 
is  the  virgin-born  body  of  Jesus ;  for  another,  "  The 
u"vernment  shall  be  upon  his  shoulder"  is  Christ's 
carrying  upon  his  shoulder  the  cross;  for  another, 
"  The  lion  shall  eat  straw  like  the  ox  "  is  the  faithful 
and  the  wicked  alike  receiving  the  body  of  Christ  in 
the  Eucharist. 

These  are  the  men,  this  is  the  critical  faculty,  fn.m 
which  our  so-called  orthodox  dogma  pr«icci-<lc.l ;  the 
worth  of  all  the  productions  of  such  a  critical  faculty 
i~  ra>\  to  estimate,  for  the  worth  is  nearly  uniform. 


ABERGLAUBE  REINVADING.  281 

When  the  Rabbinical  expounders  interpret  "  Woe 
unto  them  that  lay  field  to  field !  "  as  a  prophetic 
curse  on  the  accumulation  of  Church  property,  or 
"  Woe  unto  them  that  rise  up  early  in  the  morning 
that  they  may  follow  strong  drink !  "  as  a  prediction 
of  the  profligacy  of  the  Church  clergy,  or  "  Woe  unto 
them  that  draw  iniquity  with  cords  of  vanity !  "  as 
God's  malediction  on  Church  bells,  we  say  at  once 
that  such  critics  thus  give  their  measure  as  extractors 
of  the  true  sense  of  the  Bible.  The  moment  we  think 
seriously  and  fairly,  we  must  see  that  the  Patristic 
interpretations  of  prophecy  give,  in  like  manner, 
their  authors'  measure  as  extractors  of  the  true  sense 
of  the  Bible.  Yet  this  is  what  the  dogma  of  the 
Xicene  and  Athanasian  Creeds  professes  to  be,  and 
must  be  if  it  is  to  be  worth  anything, — "  the  true 
sense  extracted  from  the  Bible ;  "  for  "  the  Bible  is 
the  record  of  the  whole  revealed  faith,"  says  Dr. 
Xowman.  But  we  see  how  impossible  it  is  that  this 
true  sense  the  dogma  of  these  creeds  should  be. 

Therefore  it  is,  that  it  is  useful  to  give  signal  in- 
stances of  the  futility  of  patristic  and  mediaeval  criti- 
cism ;  not  to  raise  an  idle  laugh,  but  because  our  whole 
dogmatic  theology  has  a  patristic  and  mediaeval 
source,  and  from  the  nullity  of  the  deliverances  of 
this  criticism,  where  it  can  be  brought  manifestly  to 
book,  may  be  inferred  the  nullity  of  its  deliverances, 
where,  from  the  impalpable  and  incognizable  char- 
acter of  the  subjects  treated,  to  bring  it  manifestly 
to  book  is  impossible.  In  the  account  of  the  Crea- 
tion, in  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis,  "  the  greater 


282  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

light  to  rule  the  day  "  is  the  priesthood ;  "  the  lesser 
light  to  rule  the  night,"  borrowing  its  beams  from 
the  greater,  is  the  Holy  Roman  Empiro.  When  the 
disciples  of  Jesus  produced  two  swords,  and  Jesus 
said:  "It  is  enough,"  he  meant,  we  are  told,  the 
temporal  and  the  spiritual  power,  and  that  both  were 
necessary  and  both  at  the  disposal  of  the  Church  ;  but 
by  saying  afterwards  to  Peter,  after  he  had  cut  off 
th£  ear  of  Malchus :  "  Put  up  thy  sword  into  the 
sheath,"  he  meant  that  the  Church  was  not  to  wield 
the  temporal  power  itself,  but  to  employ  the  secular 
government  to  wield  it.  Now,  this  is  the  very  same 
force  of  criticism  which  in  the  Athanasian  Creed 
"  arranged,  sentence  after  sentence,"  that  doctrine  of 
the  Godhead  of  the  Eternal  Son  for  which  the 
Bishops  of  Winchester  and  Gloucester  are  so  anxious 
to  "  do  something." 

The  Schoolmen  themselves  are  but  the  same  false 
criticism  developed,  and  clad  in  an  apparatus  of  logic 
and  system.  In  that  grand  and  immense  repertory 
founded  by  the  Benedictines,  the  Hixl»irr  Li/fi'raire 
de  la  France,  we  read,  that  in  the  theological  faculty 
of  the  University  of  Paris,  the  loading  mediaeval 
university,  it  was  seriously  discussed  whether  Jesus 
at  his  ascension  had  his  clothes  on  or  not.  If  he  had 
not,  did  he  appear  before  his  apostles  naked  ?  if  he 
had,  what  became  of  the  clothes?  Mon.ifronx !  every 
one  will  say.*  Yes,  but  the  very  same  criticism, 

*  Be  it  observed,  however,  that  there  is  an  honest  scientific 
effort   in  the  Schoolmen,  and  that  to  this  sort  of  thing  one 

really  </o<-.s  conic,  u  IKTI  OIK-  really  sets  one's  self  to  treat  mira- 
cles literally  ami  exactly  ;  but  most  of  us  are  content  to  leave 
them  in  a  half-light. 


ABERGLAUBE  RE1NVAD1NO.  283 

only  full-blown,  which  produced :  "  Neither  con- 
founding the  Persons  nor  dividing  the  Substance." 
The  very  same  criticism,  which  originally  treated 
terms  as  scientific  which  were  not  scientific;  which, 
instead  of  applying  literary  and  historical  criticism 
to  the  data  of  popular  Abergla-ube,  took  these  data 
just  as  they  stood  and  merely  dressed  them  scientific- 
ally. 

Catholic  dogma  itself  is  true,  urges,  however,  Dr. 
Newman,  because  intelligent  Catholics  have  dropped 
errors  and  absurdities  like  the  False  Decretals  or  tin- 
works  of  the  pretended  Dionysius  the  Areopagite,  but 
have  not  dropped  dogma.  This  is  only  saying  that 
men  drop  the  more  palpable  blunder  before  the  less 
palpable.  The  adequate  criticism  of  the  Bible  is 
extremely  difficult,  and  slowly  does  the  "  Zeit-Geist  " 
unveil  it.  Meanwhile,  of  the  premature  and  false 
criticism  to  which  we  are  accustomed,  we  drop  the 
evidently  weak  parts  first;  we  retain  the  rest,  to  drop 
it  gradually  and  piece  by  piece  as  it  loosens  and 
breaks  up.  But  it  is  all  of  one  order,  and  in  time  it 
will  all  go.  Not  the  Athanasian  Creed's  damnatory 
clauses  only,  but  the  whole  Creed ;  not  this  one  Creed 
only,  but  the  three  Creeds, — our  whole  received  ap- 
plication of  science,  popular  or  learned,  to  the  Bible. 
For  it  was  an  inadequate  and  false  science,  and  could 
not,  from  the  nature  of  the  case,  be  otherwise. 

3. 

And  now  we  see  how  much  that  clergyman  de- 
ceives himself,  who  writes  to  the  "  Guardian " : 


LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

"  The  objectors  to  the  Athanasian  Creed  at  any  rate 
admit  that  its  doctrinal  portions  are  truly  the  care- 
fully distilled  essence  of  the  scattered  intimations  of 
Holy  Scripture  on  the  deep  mysteries  in  question, — 
priceless  discoveries  made  in  that  field."  When  one 
has  travelled  to  the  Athanasian  Creed  along  the  grad- 
ual line  of  the  historical  development  of  Christian- 
ity, instead  of  living  stationary  all  one's  life  with 
this  Creed  blocking  up  the  view,  one  is  really  tempted 
to  say,  when  one  reads  a  deliverance  like  that  of  this 
clergyman:  Sancta  simplicilas!  It  is  just  because 
the  Athanasian  Creed  pretends  to  be,  in  its  doctrine, 
"  the  carefully  distilled  essence  of  the  scattered  inti- 
mations of  Holy  Scripture,"  and  is  so  very  far  from 
it,  that  it  is  worthless.  It  is  "  the  carefully  distilled 
essence  of  the  scattered  intimations  of  Holy  Scrip- 
ture," just  as  that  allegory  of  the  two  swords  was. 
It  is  really  a  mixture — for  true  criticism,  as  it  ripens, 
it  is  even  a  grotesque  mixture — of  learned  pseudo- 
science  with  popular  Aberglaube. 

But  it  cannot  be  too  carefully  borne  in  mind  that 
the  real  "  essence  of  Holy  Scripture,"  its  saving 
truth,  is  no  such  criticism  at  all  as  the  so-called  ortho- 
dox dogma  attempts,  and  attempts  unsuccessfully. 
No,  the  real  essence  of  Scripture  is  a  much  simpler 
matter.  It  is,  for  the  Old  Testament :  "  To  him  that 
ordereth  his  conversation  right  shall  be  shown  the  sal- 
vation of  God !  " — and  for  the  New  Testament : 
"  Follow  Jesus!  "  This  is  Bible  dogma  as  opposed 
to  the  dogma  of  our  formularies.  On  this  Bible 
dogma  if  Churches  were  founded,  and  to  preach  this 


ABERGLAUBE  REINVADING.  285 

Bible  dogma  if  ministers  were  ordained,  Churches 
and  ministers  would  have  all  the  dogma  to  which  the 
Bible  attaches  eternal  life.  Plain  and  precise  enough 
it  is,  in  all  conscience;  with  the  advantage  of  being 
precisely  right,  whereas  the  plain  dogma  of  our  for- 
mularies is  precisely  wrong.  And  if  any  one  finds  it 
too  simple,  let  him  remember  that  its  hardness  is 
practical,  not  speculative;  it  is  a  rule  of  conduct;  let 
him  act  it,  and  lie  will  find  it  hard  enough.  Utinam 
per  unurn  diem  bene  essemus  conversati  in  hoc 
mundo!  But  as  a  matter  of  knowledge  it  is  very 
simple,  it  lies  on  the  surface  of  the  Bible  and  cannot 
be  missed. 

And  the  holders  of  ecclesiastical  dogma  have  al- 
ways, we  must  remember,  held  and  professed  this 
Bible  dogma  too.  Their  ecclesiastical  dogma  may 
have  prevented  their  attending  closely  enough  to  the 
Bible  dogma,  may  have  led  them  often  to  act  false 
to  it ;  but  they  have  always  held  it.  The  method  and 
the  secret  of  Jesns  have  been  always  prized.  The 
Catholic  Church  from  the  first  held  aloft  the  secret 
of  Jesus ;  the  monastic  orders  were  founded,  we  may 
say,  in  homage  to  it.  And  from  time  to  time,  through 
the  course  of  ages,  there  have  arisen  men  who  threw 
themselves  on  the  method  and  secret  of  Jesus  with  ex- 
traordinary force,  with  intuitive  sense  that  here  was 
salvation ;  and  who  really  cared  for  nothing  else, 
though  ecclesiastical  dogma,  too,  they  professed  to 
believe,  and  sincerely  thought  they  did  believe, — but 
their  heart  was  elsewhere.  These  are  they  who  "  re- 
ceived the  kingdom  of  God  as  a  little  child,''  who  per- 


LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

ceived  how  simple  a  thing  Christianity  was,  though 
so  inexhaustible,  and  who  are  therefore  "  the  greatest 
in  the  kingdom  of  God."  And  they,  not  the  the- 
ological doctors,  are  the  true  lights  of  the  Christian 
Church;  not  Augustine,  Luther,  Bossuet,  Butler,  but 
the  nameless  author  of  the  "  Imitation,"  Tauler,  St. 
Francis  of  Sales,  Wilson  of  Sodor  and  Man.  Yet 
not  only  these  men,  but  the  whole  body  of  Christian 
churches  and  sects  always,  have  all  at  least  professed 
the  method  and  secret  of  Jesus,  and  to  some  extent 
used  them.  And  whenever  these  were  used,  they 
have  borne  their  natural  fruits  of  joy  and  life;  and 
this  joy  and  this  life  have  been  taken  to  flow  from 
the  ecclesiastical  dogma  held  along  with  them,  and 
to  sanction  and  prove  it.  And  people,  meaning  to 
praise  the  bridge  which  carried  them  over  from  death 
to  life,  have  taken  this  dogma  for  the  bridge,  or  part 
of  the  bridge,  that  carried  them  over,  and  have 
eagerly  praised  it.  Thus  religion  has  been  made  to 
stand  on  its  apex  instead  of  its  base;  righteousness  is 
supported  on  ecclesiastical  dogma,  instead  of  eccle- 
Mastical  dogma  being  supported  on  righteousness. 

But  in  the  beginning  it  was  not  so.  Because  right- 
eousness is  eternal,  necessary,  life-giving,  therefore 
the  mighty  "  not  ourselves  which  makes  for  right- 
eousness "  was  the  Eternal,  Israel's  God ;  was  all- 
powerful,  all-merciful;  sends  his  Messiah,  elects  his 
people,  establishes  his  kingdom,  receives  into  ever- 
hating  habitations.  But  gradually  this  petrifies, 
it  is  a<l<lo<l  to  more  and  more;  until  at  last, 
righteousness  was  originally  perceived  to  be 


ABERGLAUBE  REINVADIXG.  287 

eternal,  necessary,  life-giving,  we  find  ourselves 
"  worshipping  One  God  in  Trinity  and  Trinity  in 
Unity,  neither  confounding  the  Persons  nor  dividing 
the  Substance."  And  then  the  original  order  is  re- 
versed. Because  there  is  One  God  in  Trinity  and 
Trinity  in  Unity,  who  receives  into  everlasting  habi- 
tations, establishes  his  kingdom,  elects  his  people, 
sends  his  Messiah,  is  all-merciful,  all-powerful, 
Israel's  God,  the  Eternal, — therefore  righteousness  is 
eternal,  necessary,  life-giving.  And  shake  the  be- 
lief in  the  One  God  in  Trinity  and  Trinity  in  Unity, 
the  belief  in  righteousness  is  shaken,  it  is  thought, 
also.  Whereas  righteousness  and  the  God  of  right- 
eousness, the  God  of  the  Bible,  are  in  truth  quite  in- 
dependent of  the  God  of  ecclesiastical  dogma,  the 
work  of  critics  of  the  Bible, — critics  understanding 
neither  what  they  say  nor  whereof  they  affirm. 


Nor  did  the  Reformation  and  Protestantism  much 
mend  the  work  of  these  critics ;  the  time  was  not  yet 
ripe  for  it.  Protestantism,  nevertheless,  was  a  stren- 
uous and  noble  effort  at  improvement ;  for  it 
was  an  effort  of  return  to  the  "  method "  of 
Jesus, — that  leaven  which  never,  since  he  set  it  in 
the  world,  has  ceased  or  can  cease  to  work.  Cathol- 
icism, we  have  said,  laid  hold  on  the  "  secret  "  of 
Jesus,  and  strenuously,  however  blindly,  employed  it ; 
this  is  the  grandeur  and  the  glory  of  Catholicism.  In 
like  manner  Protestantism  laid  hold  on  his 


LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

"method,"  and  strenuously,  however  blindly,  em- 
ployed it;  and  herein  is  the  greatness  of  Protestant- 
ism. The  preliminary  labor  of  inwardness  and  sin- 
cerity in  the  conscience  of  each  individual  man, 
which  was  the  method  of  Jesus  and  his  indispensable 
discipline  for  learning  to  employ  his  secret  aright, 
had  fallen  too  much  out  of  view;  obedience  had  in  a 
manner  superseded  it.  Protestantism  drew  it  into 
light  and  prominence  again ;  was  even,  one  may  say, 
over-absorbed  by  it,  so  as  to  leave  too  much  out  of 
view  the  "  secret."  This,  if  one  would  be  just  both 
to  Catholicism  and  to  Protestantism,  is  the  thing  to 
bear  in  mind:  Protestantism  had  hold  of  Christ's 
"  method  "  of  inwardness  and  sincerity,  Catholicism 
had  hold  of  his  "  secret  "  of  self-renouncement.  The 
chief  word  with  Protestantism  is  the  word  of  the 
method:  repentance,  conversion;  the  chief  word  with 
Catholicism  is  the  word  of  the  secret :  peace,  joy. 

And  since,  though  the  method  and  the  secret  are 
equally  indispensable,  the  secret  may  be  said  to  havr 
in  it  more  of  practice  and  conduct,  Catholicism  may 
claim  perhaps  to  have  more  of  religion.  On  tin- 
other  hand,  Protestantism  has  more  light;  and,  as 
the  method  of  inwardness  and  sincerity,  once  gained, 
is  of  general  application,  and  a  power  for  all  the  pur- 
poses of  life,  Protestantism,  we  can  see,  has  been  ac- 
companied by  most  prosperity.  And  here  is  the  an- 
swer  to  Mr.  Buckle's  famous  parallel  between  Spain 
and  Scotland,  that  parallel  which  every  one  feels  to 
lip  a  sophism.  Scotland  has  had,  to  make  her  dif- 
ferent from  Spain,  the  "method"  of  Jesus;  and 


ABERGLAUBE  REINVADING.  289 

though,  in  theology,  Scotland  may  have  turned  it  to 
no  great  account,  she  has  found  her  account  in  it  in 
almost  everything  else.  Catholicism,  again,  has  had, 
perhaps,  most  happiness.  When  one  thinks  of  the 
bitter  and  contentious  temper  of  Puritanism, — tem- 
per being,  nevertheless,  such  a  vast  part  of  conduct, — 
and  then  thinks  of  St.  Theresa  and  her  sweetness,  her 
never-sleeping  hatred  of  "  detraction,"  one  is  tempted 
almost  to  say,  that  there  was  more  of  Jesus  in  St. 
Theresa's  little  finger  than  in  John  Knox's  whole 
body.  Protestantism  has  the  method  of  Jesus  with 
his  secret  too  much  left  out  of  mind.  Catholicism 
has  his  secret  with  his  method  too  much  left  out  of 
mind ;  neither  has  his  unerring  balance,  his  intuition, 
his  sweet  reasonableness.  But  both  have  hold  of  a 
great  truth,  and  get  from  it  a  great  power. 

And  many  of  the  reproaches  cast  by  one  on  the 
other  are  idle.  If  Catholicism  is  reproached  with 
being  indifferent  to  much  that  is  called  civilization, 
it  must  be  answered :  So  was  Jesus.  If  Protestant- 
ism, with  its  private  judgment,  is  accused  of  opening 
a  wide  field  for  individual  fancies  and  mistakes,  it 
.  must  be  answered :  So  did  Jesus  when  he  introduced 
his  method.  Private  judgment,  "  the  fundamental 
and  insensate  doctrine  of  Protestantism,"  as  Joseph 
de  Maistre  calls  it,  is  in  truth  but  the  necessary 
"  method,"  the  eternally  incumbent  duty,  imposed  by 
Jesus  himself,  when  he  said :  "  Judge  not  according 
to  the  appearance,  but  judge  righteous  judgment." 
"  Judge  righteous  judgment  "  is,  however,  the  duty 
imposed :  and  the  duty  is  not,  whatever  many  Prot- 
JQ 


290  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

estants  may  seem  to  think,  fulfilled  if  the  judgment 
be  wrong.  But  the  duty  of  inwardly  judging  is  the 
very  entrance  into  the  way  and  walk  of  Jesus. 

Luther,  then,  made  an  inward  verifying  movement, 
the  individual  conscience,  once  more  the  base  of  opera- 
tions; and  he  was  right.  But  he  did  so  to  the  fol- 
lowing extent  only.  \Vhen  he  found  the  priest  com- 
ing between  the  individual  believer  and  his 
conscience,  standing  to  him  in  the  stead  of  conscience, 
he  pushed  the  priest  aside  and  brought  the  believer 
face  to  face  with  his  conscience  again.  This  explains, 
of  course,  his  battle  against  the  sale  of  indulgences 
and  other  abuses  of  the  like  kind ;  but  it  explains  also 
his  treatment  of  that  cardinal  point  in  the  Catholic 
religious  system,  the  Mass.  He  substituted  for  it, 
as  the  cardinal  ]«>int  in  the  Protestant  system, 
justification  by  faith.  The  miracle  of  Christ's  aton- 
ing sacrifice,  satisfying  (i"«lV  wrath,  and  taking  off 
the  curse  from  mankind,  is  the  foundation  both  •<( 
the  Mass  and  of  the  fanums  Lutheran  tenet.  Bn:. 
in  the  Mass,  the  priest  makes,  the  miracle  over  again 
and  applies  its  benefits  to  the  believer.  In  the  tend 
of  justification,  the  believer  is  himself  in  omtaet  with  , 
the  miracle  of  Christ's  atonement,  and  applie> 
Christ's  merits  to  himself.  The  conscience  is  thus 
brought  into  direct  communieation  with  Cliri 
ing  act;  but  this  saving  act  is  still  taken — just  a^ 
popular  religion  conceived  it,  and  as  formal  theology 
adopted  it  from  popular  religion — as  a  miracle,  th<- 
miracle  of  the  Atonement.  This  popular  and  imp«T 
foct  conception  of  the  sense  of  Christ's  death,  and  in 


ABERGLAUBE  REINVADING.  £91 

general  the  whole  inadequate  criticism  of  the  Bible 
involved  in  the  Creeds,  underwent  at  the  Reforma- 
tion no  scrutiny  and  no  change.  Luther's  actual  ap- 
plication, then,  of  the  "  method  "  of  Jesus  to  the 
inner  body  of  dogma,  developed  as  we  have  seen, 
which  he  found  regnant,  proceeded  no  farther  than 
this. 

And  Justification  by  faith,  our  being  saved  by 
"  giving  our  hearty  consent  to  Christ's  atoning  work 
on  our  behalf,"  by  "  pleading  simply  the  blood  of  the 
covenant,"  Luther  made  the  essential  matter  not  only 
of  his  own  religious  system  but  of  the  entire  Xew 
Testament.  We  must  be  enabled,  he  said,  and  we  are 
enabled,  to  distinguish  among  the  books  of  the  Bible 
those  which  are  the  best ;  now,  those  are  the  best 
which  show  Christ,  and  teach  what  would  be  enough 
for  us  to  know,  even  if  no  other  parts  of  the  Bible 
existed.  And  this  evangelical  element,  as  it  has 
been  called,  this  fundamental  thought  of  the  Gospel. 
is,  for  Luther,  our  "  being  justified  by  the  alone 
merits  of  Christ."  This  is  the  doctrine  of  "  passive 
or  Christian  righteousness,"  as  Luther  is  fond  of 
naming  it,  which  consists  in  "  doing  nothing,  but 
simply  knowing  and  believing  that  Christ  is  gone  to 
the  Father  and  we  see  him  no  more ;  that  he  sits  in 
Heaven  at  the  right  hand  of  the  Father,  not  as  our 
judge,  but  made  unto  us  by  God  wisdom,  righteous- 
ness, sanctification,  and  redemption ;  in  sum,  that  he 
is  our  high-priest,  making  intercession  for  us." 
Every  one  will  recognize  the  consecrated  watchwords 
of  Protestant  theology. 


292  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

Such  is  Luther's  criticism  of  the  New  Testament, 
of  its  fundamental  thought ;  and  he  picks  out,  as  the 
kernel  and  marrow  of  the  New  Testament,  the  Fourth 
Gospel  and  the  First  Epistle  by  the  author  of  this 
Gospel,  St.  Paul's  Epistles, — in  especial  those  to  the 
Romans,  Galatians,  and  Ephesians, — and  the  First 
Epistle  of  St.  Peter.  Now,  the  common  complaint 
against  Luther  is  on  the  score  of  his  audacity  in  thus 
venturing  to  make  a  table  of  precedence  for  the 
equally  inspired  books  of  the  New  Testament.  Yet 
in  this  he  was  quite  right,  and  was  but  following  the 
method  of  Jesus,  if  the  good  news  conveyed  in  the 
whole  New  Testament  is,  as  it  is,  something  definite, 
and  all  parts  do  not  convey  it  equally.  Where  ho 
was  wrong,  was  in  his  delineation  of  this  fundamental 
thought  of  the  New  Testament,  in  his  description  of 
the  good  news;  and  few,  probably,  who  have  fol- 
lowed us  thus  far,  will  have  difficulty  in  admitting 
that  he  was  wrong  here,  and  quite  wrong.  And  this 
has  been  the  fault  of  Protestantism  generally:  not 
its  presumption  in  interpreting  Scripture  for  itself, 
— for  the  Church  interpreted  it  no  better,  and  Jesus 
has  thrown  on  each  individual  the  duty  of  interpret- 
ing it  for  himself, — but  that  it  has  interpreted  it 
wrong,  and  no  better  than  tin-  (  Mnnvli.  "  Calvinism 
has  borne  ever  :m  inlli-\il>le  front  to  illusion  :in<l  men- 
dacity," says  Mr.  Fronde.  This  is  a  flourish  of  rhet 
oric;  for  the  Calvinistic  doctrine  is  in  itself,  like  the 
Lutheran  doctrine,  and  like  Catholic  dogma,  a  false 
criticism  of  the  Bible,  an  illusion.  And  the  Calvin- 
istic and  Lutheran  doctrines  both  of  them  sin  in  the 


ABERGLAUBE  REINVADING.  293 

same  way ;  not  by  using  a  method  which,  after  all. 
is  the  method  of  Jesus,  but  by  not  using  the  method 
enough,  by  not  applying  it  to  the  Bible  thoroughly, 
by  keeping  too  much  of  what  the  traditions  of  men 
chose  to  tell  them. 


5. 


The  time  was  not  then  ripe  for  doing  more;  and 
we,  if  we  can  do  more,  have  the  fulness  of  time  to 
thank  for  it,  not  ourselves.  Yet  it  needs  all  one's 
sense  of  the  not  ourselves  in  these  things,  to  make  us 
understand  how  doctrines,  supposed  to  be  the  essence 
of  the  Bible  by  great  Catholics  and  by  great  Prot- 
estants, should  ever  have  been  supposed  to  be  so,  and 
by  such  men. 

To  take  that  chief  stronghold  of  ecclesiasticism  and 
sacerdotalism,  the  institution  of  the  Eucharist.  As 
Catholics  present  it,  it  makes  the  Church  indispen- 
sable, with  all  her  apparatus  of  an  apostolical  suc- 
cession, an  authorized  priesthood,  a  power  of  absolu- 
tion. Yet,  as  Jesus  founded  it,  it  is  the  most  anti- 
ecclesiastical  of  institutions,  pulverizing  alike  the 
historic  churches  in  their  beauty  and  the  dissenting 
sects  in  their  unloveliness ; — it  is  the  consecration  of 
absolute  individualism.  "  This  cup  is  the  new  cove- 
nant in  my  blood  which  is  shed  for  you."  When 
Jesus  so  spoke,  what  did  he  mean,  what  was  in  his 
mind  ?  Undoubtedly  these  words  of  the  prophet  Jere- 
miah :  "  Behold  the  days  come,  saith  the  Eternal, 
that  I  will  make  a  new  covenant  with  the  house  of 


294  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

Israel,  not  according  to  the  covenant  that  I  made 
with  their  fathers,  which  covenant  they  brake;  but 
this  shall  be  the  covenant  that  I  will  make  with  the 
house  of  Israel :  After  those  days,  saith  the  Kternal, 
I  will  put  my  law  in  their  Inirnrd  fnirls,  and  write  it 
in  their  hearts,  and  Ihaj  shall  teach  no  more  every 
man  his  neighbor  and  every  man  his  brother,  saying: 
Know  the  Eternal !  for  they  shall  all  know  me,  from 
the  least  to  the  greate-i."  Xn  more  scribes,  no  more 
doctors,  no  more  priests !  the  crowning  act  in  the 
"secret"  of  Jesus  seals  at  the  same  time  his 
"  method," — his  method  of  pure  inwardness,  indi- 
vidual responsibility,  personal  religion. 

Take,  again,  the  Protestant  doctrine  of  Justifica- 
tion; of  trusting  in  the  alone  merits  of  Christ,  plead- 
ing the  Blood  of  the  Covenant,  imputed  righteousness. 
In  our  railway  stations  are  hung  up,  as  every  one 
knows,  sheets  of  Bible  texts  to  catch  the  passer's  eye; 
and  very  profitable  admonitions  to  him  they  in  gen- 
eral are.  It  is  said  that  the  thought  of  thus  exhibit- 
ing them  occurred  to  Dr.  Marsh,  a  venerable  leader 
of  the  so-called  Evangelical  party  in  our  Church,  tin- 
party  which  specially  clings  to  the  special  Protestant 
doctrine  of  Justification;  and  that  he  arranged  tin- 
texts  we  daily  see.  And  there  is  one  which  we 
may  all  remember  to  have  often  seen.  Dr.  Marsh 
asks  the  prophet  "Mieah's  question  :  "  Wherewith  shall 
I  come  before  the  Lord,  and  bow  myself  before  the 
high  God?"  and  he  answers  it  with  one  short  sen 
tenee  from  the  Kpistle  to  the  Hebrews:  "With  the 
precious  blood  of  Christ."  This  is  precisely  the 


ABERGLAUBE  REINVADING.  295 

popular  Protestant  notion  of  the  Gospel;  and  we  are 
all  so  used  to  it  that  Dr.  Marsh's  application  of  the 
text  has  probably  surprised  no  one.  And  yet,  if 
one  thinks  of  it,  how  astonishing  an  application  it  is ! 
For  even  the  Hebrew  Micah,  some  seven  or  eight  cen- 
turies before  Christ,  had  seen  that  this  sort  of  gospel, 
or  good  news,  was  none  at  all ;  for  even  he  suggests 
this  always  popular  notion  of  atoning  blood  only  to 
reject  it,  and  ends :  "  He  hath  showed  thee,  O  man, 
what  is  good ;  and  what  doth  the  Eternal  require  of 
thee,  but  to  do  justly,  and  to  love  mercy,  and  to  walk 
humbly  with  thy  God  ?  "  So  that  the  Hebrew  Micah, 
nearly  three  thousand  years  ago,  under  the  old  dis- 
pensation, was  far  in  advance  of  this  venerable  and 
amiable  Coryphaeus  of  our  Evangelical  party  now, 
under  the  ( 'hristian  dispensation  ! 

Dr.  Marsh  and  his  school  go  wrong,  it  will  be  said, 
through  their  false  criticism  of  the  Xew  Testament, 
and  we  have  ourselves  admitted  that  the  perfect  crit- 
icism of  the  Xew  Testament  is  extremely  difficult. 
True,  the  perfect  criticism ;  but  not  such  an  elemen- 
tary criticism  of  it  as  slum's  the  gospel  of  Dr.  Marsh 
and  of  our  so-called  Evangelical  Protestants  to  be  a 
false  one.  For  great  as  their  literary  inexperience 
is,  and  unpractised  us  is  their  tact  for  perceiving 
the  manner  in  which  men  use  words  and  what  they 
mean  by  them,  one  would  think  they  could  under- 
stand such  a  plain  caution  against  mistaking  Christ's 
death  for  a  miraculous  atonement  as  St.  Paul  has 
actually  given  them.  For  St.  Paul,  who  so  admir- 
p.bly  seized  the  secret  of  Jesus,  who  preached  "  Jesus 


LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

Christ  crucified  in  you,"  and  who  placed  salvation  in 
being  able  to  say  "  I  am  crucified  with  Christ !  " 
St.  Paul  warns  us  clearly,  that  this  "  word  of  the 
cross,"  as  he  calls  it,  is  so  simple,  being  neither  mir- 
acle nor  metaphysics,  that  it  would  be  thought  fool- 
ishness. The  Jews  want  miracle,  he  says,  and  the 
Greeks  want  metaphysics,  but  I  preach  Christ  cruci- 
fied!— that  is,  the  "secret"  of  Jesus,  as  we  call  it. 
"  The  Jews  want  miracle !  " — that  is  a  warning 
against  Dr.  Marsh's  doctrine,  and  against  Evangelical 
Protestantism's  phantasmagories  of  the  "  Contract  in 
the  Council  of  the  Trinity,"  "  the  Atoning  Blood," 
and  "  Imputed  Righteousness."  "  The  Greeks  want 
metaphysics !  " — that  is  a  warning  against  the 
Bishops  of  Winchester  and  Gloucester,  with  their 
Aryan  genius  (if  so  ill-sounding  a  word  as  Aryan, 
spell  it  how  one  may,  can  ever  be  properly  applied  to 
our  bishops,  and  one  ought  not  rather  to  say  Indo- 
European),  dressing  the  popular  doctrine  out  with 
fine  speculations  about  the  Godhead  of  the  Eternal 
Son,  his  Consubstantiality  with  the  Father,  and  so 
on.  But  we  preach,  says  St.  Paul,  Clirixl  crucified! 
to  Mr.  Spurgeon  and  to  popular  religion  a  stumbling1' 
block,  to  the  bishops  and  to  learned  religion  foolish- 
ness; but  to  them  that  are  called,  Christ  the  power 
of  God  and  the  wisdom  of  God.  That  is,  we  preach 
a  doctrine,  not  thaumaturgical  and  not  speculative, 
but  practical  and  experimental ;  a  doctrine  which  has 
no  meaning  except  in  positive  application  to  conduct, 
but  in  this  application  is  inexhaustible. 


ABERGLAUBE  REINVADING.  297 

6. 

So  false,  so  astoundingly  false  (thus  one  is  in- 
clined to  say  by  the  light  which  the  "  Zeit-Geist "  is 
beginning  to  hold  out  over  them),  are  both  popular 
and  learned  science  in  their  criticism  of  the  Bible. 
And  for  the  learned  science  one  feels  no  tenderness, 
because  it  has  gone  wrong  with  a  great  parade  of  ex- 
actitude and  philosophy;  whereas,  all  it  really  did 
was  to  take  the  "  magnified  and  non-natural  Man  " 
of  popular  religion  as  God,  and  to  take  Jesus  as  his 
son,  and  then  to  state  the  relations  between  them  met- 
aphysically. !N"o  difficulties  suggested  by  the  popular 
science  of  religion  has  this  learned  science  ever  re- 
moved, and  it  has  created  plenty  of  its  own. 

But  for  the  popular  science  of  religion  one  has,  or 
ought  to  have,  an  infinite  tenderness.  It  is  the  spon- 
taneous work  of  nature ;  it  is  the  travail  of  the  hu- 
man mind  to  adapt  to  its  grasp  and  employment  great 
ideas  of  which  it  feels  the  attraction,  but  for  which, 
except  as  given  to  it  by  this  travail,  it  would  be  im- 
mature. The  imperfect  science  of  the  Bible,  formu- 
lated in  the  so-called  Apostles'  Creed,  was  the  only 
vehicle  by  which,  to  generation  after  generation  of 
men,  the  method  and  secret  of  Jesus  could  gain  any 
access;  and  in  this  sense  we  may  even  call  it,  taking 
the  point  of  view  of  popular  theology,  Providential. 
And  this  rude  criticism  is  full  of  poetry,  and  in  this 
poetry  we  have  been  all  nursed.  To  call  it,  as  many 
of  our  philosophical  Liberal  friends  are  fond  of  call- 
ing it,  a  "  degrading  superstition,"  is  as  untrue  as  it 


LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

is  a  poor  compliment  to  human  nature,  which  pro- 
duced this  criticism  and  used  it.  It  is  an  Aber- 
glaube,  or  extra-belief  and  fairy-tale,  produced  by 
taking  certain  groat  names  and  great  promises  too 
literally  and  materially;  but  it  is  not  a  degrading 
superstition. 

Protestants,  on  their  part,  have  no  difficulty  in 
calling  the  Catholic  doctrine  of  the  Mass  "  a  degrad- 
ing superstition."  Tt  is  indeed  a  rude  and  blind  crit- 
icism of  Christ's  words:  "He  that  eateth  me  shall 
live  by  me."  But  once  admit  the  miracle  of  the 
"  atoning  sacrifice-,"  once  move  in  this  order  of  ideas, 
and  what  can  l>e  more  natural  and  beautiful  than  to 
imagine  this  miracle  every  day  repeated,  Christ  of- 
fered in  thousands  of  places,  everywhere  the  believer 
enabled  to  enact  the  work  of  redemption  and  unite 
himself  with  the  Body  whose  sacrifice  saves  him  ? 
And  the  effect  of  this  belief  has  been  no  more  de- 
grading than  the  belief  itself.  The  fourth  book  of 
the  "  Imitation,"  which  treats  of  "  The  Sacrament  of 
the  Altar,"  is  of  later  date  and  lesser  merit  than  the 
three  books  which  precede  it :  but  it  is  worth  while 
to  quote  from  this  book  a  few  words,  for  the  sake  <>f 
the  testimony  they  bear  to  the  practical  operation, 
in  many  cases  at  any  rate,  of  this  belief.  "  To  us 
in  our  weakness  thou  hast  given,  for  the  ivfiv-hment 
of  mind  and  body,  thy  sacred  Body.  The  devout 
o.nimunicant  thou,  my  God,  raisest  from  the  depth 
of  his  own  dejection  to  the  hope  of  thy  protection, 
and  with  a  hitherto  unknown  grace  renewest  him  and 
enlightenest  him  within ;  so  that  they  who  at  first,  be- 


ABERGLAUBE  REINVADING.  299 

fore  this  Communion,  had  felt  themselves  distressed 
and  affectionless,  after  the  refreshment  of  this  meat 
and  drink  from  heaven  find  themselves  changed  to 
a  new  and  better  man.  For  this  most  high  and 
worthy  Sacrament  is  the  saving  health  of  soul  and 
body,  the  medicine  of  all  spiritual  languor;  by  it  my 
vices  are  cured,  my  passions  bridled,  temptations  are 
conquered  or  diminished,  a  larger  grace  is  infused, 
the  beginnings  of  virtue  are  made  to  grow,  faith  is 
confirmed,  hope  strengthened,  and  charity  takes  fire 
and  dilates  into  fame."  So  little  is  the  doctrine  of 
the  Mass  to  be  called  a  "  degrading  superstition," 
either  in  its  character  or  in  its  working. 

But  it  is  false!  sternly  breaks  in  the  Evangelical 
Protestant.  O  Evangelical  Protestant,  is  thine  own 
doctrine,  then,  so  true  ?  As  the  Romish  doctrine  of 
the  Mass,  the  Real  Presence,  is  a  rude  and  blind  crit- 
icism of :  "  lie  that  eateth  me  shall  live  by  me ;  " 
so  the  Protestant  tenet  of  Justification,  "  pleading 
the  Blood  of  the  Covenant,"  is  a  rude  and  blind  crit- 
icism of :  "  The  Son  of  Man  came  to  give  his  life 
a  ransom  for  many ;  " — it  is  a  taking  of  the  words  of 
Scripture  literally  and  unintelligently.  And  our 
friends,  the  philosophical  Liberals,  are  not  slow  to 
call  this,  too,  a  degrading  superstition,  just  as  Prot- 
estants <-;ill  the  doctrine  of  the  Mass  a  degrading  su- 
perstition. We  say,  on  the  contrary,  that  a  degrad- 
ing superstition  neither  the  one  nor  the  other  is.  In 
imagining  a  sort  of  infinitely  magnified  and  improved 
Lord  Shaftesbury,  with  a  race  of  vile  offenders  to 
deal  with,  whom  his  natural  goodness  would  incline 


300  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA, 

him  to  let  off,  only  his  sense  of  justice  will  not  al- 
low it,  then  a  younger  Lord  Shaftesbury,  on  the  scale 
of  his  father  and  very  dear  to  him,  who  might  live  in 
grandeur  and  splendor  if  he  liked,  but  who  prefers 
to  leave  his  home,  to  go  and  live  among  the  race  of 
offenders,  and  to  be  put  to  an  ignominious  death,  on 
condition  that  his  merits  shall  be  counted  against 
their  demerits,  and  that  his  father's  goodness  shall 
be  restrained  no  longer  from  taking  effect,  but  any 
offender  shall  be  admitted  to  the  benefit  of  it  on  sim- 
ply pleading  the  satisfaction  made  by  the  son ;  and 
then,  finally,  a  third  Lord  Shaftesbury,  still  011  the 
same  high  scale,  who  keeps  very  much  in  the  back 
ground,  and  works  in  a  very  occult  manner,  but  very 
efficaciously  nevertheless,  and  who  is  busy  in  apply- 
ing everywhere  the  benefits  of  the  son's  satisfaction 
and  the  father's  goodness; — in  an  imagination,  I  sny. 
such  as  this,  there  is  nothing  degrading,  and  thi.-  i- 
precisely  the  Protestant  story  of  Justification.  Ami 
how  awe  of  the  first  Lord  Shaftesbury,  gratitude  and 
love  towards  the  second,  and  earnest  co-operation  with 
the  third,  may  fill  and  rule  men's  hearts  so  as  to  trans- 
form their  conduct,  we  need  not  go  about  to  show, 
for  we  have  all  seen  it  with  our  eyes.  Therefore  ii> 
the  practical  working  of  this  tenet  there  is  nothing 
degrading;  any  more  than  there  is  anything  degrad- 
ing in  this  tenet  as  an  imaginative  conception.  And 
looking  to  the  infinite  importance  of  getting  right 
conduct — three  fourths  of  human  life — established, 
and  to  the  inevitable  anthropomorphism  and  extra- 
belief  of  men  in  dealing  with  ideas,  one  might  well 


ABERGLAUBE  REINVADIXG.  301 

hesitate  to  attack  an  anthropomorphism  or  an  extra- 
belief  by  which  men  helped  themselves  in  conduct, 
merely  because  an  anthropomorphism  or  an  extra- 
belief  it  is,  so  long  as  it  served  its  purpose,  so  long 
as  it  was  firmly  and  undoubtingly  held,  and  almost 
universally  prevailing. 

But,  after  all,  the  question  sooner  or  later  arises 
in  respect  to  a  matter  taken  for  granted,  like  the 
Catholic  doctrine  of  the  Mass  or  the  Protestant  doc- 
trine of  Justification:  Is  it  sure?  can  what  is  here 
assumed  be  verified?  And  this  is  the  real  objection 
both  to  the  Catholic  and  Protestant  doctrine  as  a  basis 
for  conduct ; — not  that  it  is  a  degrading  superstition, 
but  that  it  is  not  sure,  that  it  assumes  what  cannot  be 
verified. 

For  a  long  time  this  objection  occurred  to  scarcely 
anybody.  And  there  are  still,  and  for  a  long  time 
yet  there  will  be,  many  to  whom  it  does  not  occur. 
In  particular,  on  those  "  devout  women  "  who  in  the 
history  of  religion  have  at  all  times  played  a  part 
in  many  respects  so  beautiful  but  in  some  respects  so 
mischievous, — on  them,  and  on  a  certain  number  of 
men  like  them,  it  has  and  can  as  yet  have,  so  far  as 
one  can  see,  no  effect  at  all.  Who  that  watches  the 
energumens  during  the  celebration  of  the  Communion 
at  some  Ritualistic  church,  their  gestures  and  be- 
havior, the  floor  of  the  church  strewn  with  what  seem 
to  be  the  dying  and  the  dead,  progress  to  the  altar 
almost  barred  by  forms  suddenly  dropping  as  if  they 
were  shot  in  battle, — who  that  observes  this  delighted 
adoption  of  vehement  rites,  till  yesterday  unknown. 


302  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

adopted  and  practised  now  with  all  that  absence  of 
tact,  measure,  and  correct  perception,  all  that  slow- 
ness to  see  when  they  are  making  themselves  ridicu- 
lous, which  belongs  to  the  people  of  our  English  race, 
— who,  I  say,  that  sees  this,  can  doubt,  that  for  a  not 
small  portion  of  the  religious  community,  a  difficulty 
to  the  intelligence  will  for  a  long  time  yet  be  no  dif- 
ficulty at  all?  With  their  mental  condition  ami 
habits,  given  a  story  to  which  their  religious  emo- 
tions can  attach  themselves,  and  the  famous  Credo 
(juia  inept  um  will  hold  good  with  them  still.  To 
think  they  know  what  passed  in  the  Council  of  the 
Trinity  is  not  hard  to  them ;  they  could  easily  think 
they  even  knew  what  were  the  hangings  of  the  Trin- 
ity's council-chamber. 

Arbitrary  and  unsupported,  however,  as  the  story 
they  have  taken  up  with  may  be,  yet  it  puts  them  in 
connection  with  the  Bible  and  the  religion  <>t  the 
Bible, — that  is,  with  righteousness  and  with  the 
method  and  secret  of  Jesus.  These  arc  so  Hear  in  the 
Bible  that  no  one  who  uses  it  can  help  seeing  them 
there;  and  of  these  they  do  take  for  their  use  some- 
thing, though  on  a  wrong  ground.  But  these,  so  far 
as  they  are  taken  into  use,  are  saving. 


CHAPTER   X. 

OUR    "  MASSES  "    AND    THE    BIBLE. 

MAXY,  however,  and  of  a  much  stronger  and  more 
important  sort,  there  now  are,  who  will  not  thus  take 
on  trust  the  story  which  is  made  the  ground  for  put- 
ting ourselves  in  connection  with  the  Bible  and  learn- 
ing to  use  its  religion ;  be  it  the  story  of  the  divine 
authority  of  the  Church,  as  in  Catholic  countries,  or 
— as  generally  with  us — the  story  of  three  Lord 
Shaftesburys  standing  on  its  own  merits.  Is  what 
this  story  asserts  true,  they  are  beginning  to  ask ;  can 
it  be  verified  ? — since  experience  proves,  they  add, 
that  whatever  for  man  is  true,  man  can  verify.  And 
certainly  the  fairy-tale  of  the  three  Lord  Shaftes- 
burys no  man  can  verify.  They  find  this  to  be  so, 
and  then  they  say :  The  Bible  takes  for  granted  this 
story  and  depends  on  the  truth  of  it ;  what,  then,  can 
rational  people  have  to  do  with  the  Bible  ?  So  they 
get  rid,  to  be  sure,  of  a  false  ground  for  using  the 
Bible,  but  they  at  the  same  time  lose  the  Bible  itself, 
and  the  true  religion  of  the  Bible ;  righteousness,  and 
the  method  and  secret  of  Jesus.  And  those  who  lose 
this  are  the  masses,  as  they  are  called  ;  or  rather  they 
are  what  is  most  strenuous,  intelligent,  and  alive 

303 


304:  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

among  the  masses,  and  what  will  give  the  direction 
for  the  rest  to  follow. 

This  is  what  every  one  sees  to  constitute  the  special 
moral  feature  of  our  times :  the  masses  are  losing  the 
Bible  and  its  religion.  At  the  Kenascence,  many  cul- 
tivated wits  lost  it;  but  the  great  solid  mass  of  the 
common  people  kept  it,  and  brought  the  world  hack  to 
it  after  a  start  had  seemed  to  be  made  in  quite  another 
direction.  But  now  it  is  the  people  which  is  getting 
detached  from  the  Bible;  the  masses  can  no  longer 
be  relied  on  to  counteract  what  the  cultivated  wits  are 
doing,  and  stubbornly  to  make  clever  men's  extrava- 
gances and  aberrations,  if  about  the  Bible  they  com- 
mit them,  of  no  avail.  When  our  philosophical  Lib- 
eral friends  say,  that  by  universal  suffrage,  public? 
meetings,  Church  disestablishment,  marrying  one's 
deceased  wife's  sister,  secular  schools,  industrial  (!<• 
velopment,  man  can  very  well  live;  and  that  if  I  it- 
studies  the  writings,  say,  of  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer 
into  the  bargain,  he  will  be  perfect,  lie  will  have  "  in 
modern  and  congenial  language  the  truisms  common 
to  all  systems  of  morality,"  and  the  Bible  is  become 
quite  old-fashioned  and  superfluous  for  him ; — when 
our  philosophical  friends  now  say  this,  the  masses, 
far  from  checking  them,  are  disposed  to  applaud 
them  to  the  echo.  Yet  assuredly,  of  conduct,  which 
is  more  than  three  fourths  of  human  life,  the  Bible, 
whatever  people  may  thus  think  and  say,  is  the  great 
inspirer;  so  that  from  the  great  inspirer  of  more  than 
three  fourths  of  human  life  the  masses  of  our  society 
seem  now  to  be  cutting  themselves  off.  This  prom- 


OUR  "  MASSES  "  AND  THE  BIBLE.  305 

ises,  certainly,  if  it  does  not  already  constitute,  a  very 
imsettled  condition  of  things.  And  the  cause  of  it 
lies  in  the  Bible  being  made  to  depend  on  a  story,  or 
set  of  asserted  facts,  which  it  is  impossible  to  verify ; 
and  which  hard-hearted  people,  therefore,  treat  as 
either  an  imposture,  or  a  fairy-tale  that  discredits  all 
which  is  found  in  connection  with  it. 

2. 

Now  if  we  look  attentively  at  the  story,  or  set  of 
asserted  but  unverified  and  un verifiable  facts,  which 
we  have  summarized  in  popular  language  above,  and 
which  is  alleged  as  the  basis  of  the  Bible,  we  shall 
find  that  the  difficulty  really  lies  all  in  one  point. 
The  whole  difficulty  is  with  the  elder  Lord  Shaftes- 
bury.  If  he  could  be  verified,  the  data  we  have  are, 
possibly,  enough  to  warrant  our  admitting  the  truth 
of  the  rest  of  the  story.  It  is  singular  how  few  peo- 
ple seem  to  see  this,  though  it  is  really  quite  clear. 
The  Bible  is  supposed  to  assume  a  great  Personal 
First  Cause,  who  thinks  and  loves,  the  moral  and  in- 
telligent Governor  of  the  Universe;  a  sort  of  elder 
Lord  Shaftesbury,  as  we  call  him,  infinitely  magni- 
fied. This  is  the  God,  also,  of  natural  religion,  as 
people  call  it ;  and  this  supposed  certainty  learned 
reasoners  take,  and  render  it  more  certain  still  by 
considerations  of  causality,  identity,  existence,  and 
so  on.  These,  however,  are  not  found  to  help  the  cer- 
tainty much ;  but  a  certainty  in  itself  the  great  Per- 
sonal First  Cause,  the  God  of  both  natural  and  re- 
vealed religion,  is  supposed  to  be. 
2O 


306  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

Then,  to  this  given  beginning  all  that  the  Bible  de- 
livers has  to  fit  itself  on.  And  so  arises  the  account 
of  the  God  of  the  Old  Testament,  and  of  Christ  and 
of  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  of  the  incarnation  and  atone- 
ment, and  of  the  sacraments,  and  of  inspiration,  and 
of  the  church,  and  of  eternal  punishment  and  eternal 
bliss,  as  theology  presents  them.  But  difficulties 
strike  people  in  this  or  that  of  these  doctrines;  the  in- 
carnation seems  incredible  to  one,  the  vicarious  atone- 
ment to  another,  the  real  presence  to  a  third,  inspira- 
tion to  a  fourth,  eternal  punishment  to  a  fifth,  and  so 
on.  And  they  set  to  work  to  make  religion  more 
pure  and  rational,  as  they  suppose,  by  pointing  out 
that  this  or  that  of  these  doctrines  is  false,  that  it 
must  be  a  mistake  of  theologians ;  and  by  interpreting 
the  Bible  so  as  to  show  that  the  doctrine  is  not  really 
there.  The  Socinians  are,  perhaps,  the  great  people 
for  this  sort  of  partial  and  local  rationalizing  of  re- 
ligion;  for  taking  what  here  and  there  on  the  surface 
seems  to  conflict  most  with  common-sense,  arguing 
that  it  cannot  be  in  the  Bible  and  getting  rid  of  it. 
and  professing  to  have  thus  relieved  religion  of  its 
difficulties.  And  now,  when  there  is  much  loosen- 
ing of  authority  and  tradition,  much  impatience  <>f 
what  conflicts  with  common-sense,  the  Socinians  are 
beginning  to  give  themselves  out  as  the  Church  of  the 
Future. 

I'.nt  in  all  this  there  is  in  reality  a  good  deal  of 
what  we  must  call  intellectual  shallowness.  For, 
granted  that  there  are  things  in  a  system  which  are 
puzzling,  yet  they  belong  to  ;l  xi/slcm ;  and  it  is  child- 


OUR  "  MASSES  "  AND  THE  BIBLE.  307 

ish  to  pick  them  uui  by  themselves  and  reproach  them 
with  error,  when  you  leave  untouched  the  basis  of  the 
system  where  they  occur,  and  indeed  admit  it  for 
sound  yourself.  The  Soeinians  are  very  loud  about 
tin  unreasonableness  and  imscripturalness  of  the  com- 
mon doctrine  of  the  Atonement.  But  in  the  Socin- 
ian  Catechism  it  stands  written :  "  It  is  necessary 
for  salvation  to  know  that  God  is;  and  to  know  that 
God  is,  is  to  be  firmly  persuaded  that  there  exists 
in  reality  some  One,  who  has  supreme  dominion  over 
all  things."  Presently  afterwards  it  stands  writ- 
ten, that  among  the  testimonies  to  Christ  are,  "  mir- 
acles very  great  and  immense,"  miracula  admodum 
magna  et  immensa.  J^ow,  with  the  One  Supreme 
Governor,  and  miracles,  given  to  start  with,  it  may 
fairly  be  urged  that  the  construction  put  by  common 
theology  on  the  Bible  data,  which  we  call  the  story  of 
the  three  Lord  Shaftesburys,  and  in  which  the  Atone- 
ment fills  a  prominent  place,  is  the  natural  and  legit- 
imate construction  to  put  on  them,  and  not  unscrip- 
tural  at  all.  Xeither  is  it  unreasonable, — in  a  sys- 
tem of  things,  where  the  Supreme  Governor  and  mir- 
acles, or  even  when  the  Supreme  Governor  without 
miracles,  are  already  given. 

And  this  is  Butler's  great  argument  in  the  "  An- 
alogy." You  all  concede,  he  says  to  his  deistical 
adversaries,  a  supreme  Personal  First  Cause,  the 
moral  and  intelligent  Governor  of  the  universe ;  this, 
you  and  I  both  agree,  is  the  order  of  nature.  But 
you  are  offended  at  certain  things  in  revelation; — 
that  is,  at  things,  Butler  means,  like  the  story  of  the 


308  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

three  Lord  Shaftesburys  as  theology  collects  it  from 
the  Bible.  Well,  I  will  show  you,  he  says,  that  in 
your  and  my  admitted  system  of  nature  there  are  just 
as  great  difficulties  as  in  the  system  of  revelation. 
And  he  does  show  it;  and  by  adversaries  such  as  his;, 
who  grant  what  the  Deist  or  Sociniau  grants,  he 
never  has  been  answered,  he  never  can  be  answered. 
The  spear  of  Butler's  reasoning  will  even  follow  and 
transfix  the  scientific  Duke  of  Somerset,  who  dislikes 
so  much  in  the  Bible,  but  "  retires  into  one  unassail- 
able fortress, — faith  in  God." 

The  only  question,  perhaps,  is  whether  Butler  as 
an  Anglican  bishop  puts  an  adequate  construction 
upon  what  Bible  revelation,  this  basis  of  the  Su- 
preme Governor  being  supposed,  may  be  allowed  to 
be ;  whether  Catholic  dogma  is  not  the  truer  construc- 
tion to  put  upon  it.  Dr.  Newman  urges,  fairly 
enough,  Butler  admits,  analogy  is  in  some  sort  vio- 
lated by  the  fact  of  revelation;  only,  with  the  prece- 
dent of  natural  religion  given,  we  have  to  own  that 
the  difficulties  against  revelation  are  not  greater  than 
against  this  precedent,  and  therefore  the  admission 
of  this  precedent  of  natural  religion  may  well  be 
taken  to  clear  them.  And  must  we  not  go  farther 
in  the  same  way,  says  Dr.  Newman,  and  own  that 
the  precedent  of  revelation,  too,  may  be  taken  to 
cover  more  than  itself;  and  that  as,  the  Supreme  Gov- 
ernor being  given,  it  is  credible  that  the  Incarnation 
is  true,  BO,  the  Incarnation  being  true,  it  is  evedililr 
that  God  should  not  have  left  the  world  to  itself  a  fin- 
Christ  and  his  Apostles  disappeared,  but  -Ji<>nld  li.-i\c 


OUR  "  MASSES  '  AND  THE  BIBLE.  309 

lodged  divine  insight  in  the  Church  and  its  visible 
head?  So  pleads  Dr.  Newman;  and  if  it  be  said 
that  facts  are  against  the  infallibility  of  the  Church, 
or  that  Scripture  is  against  it,  yet  to  wide,  immense 
things,  like  facts  and  Scripture,  a  turn  may  easily  be 
given  Avhich  makes  them  favor  it;  and  so  an  endless 
field  for  discussion  is  opened,  and  no  issue  is  possible. 
For  once  launched  on  this  line  of  hypothesis  and  in- 
ference, with  a  Supreme  Governor  assumed,  and  the 
task  thrown  upon  us  of  making  out  what  he  means 
us  to  infer  and  what  we  may  suppose  him  to  do  and 
to  intend,  one  of  us  may  infer  one  thing  and  another 
of  us  another,  and  neither  can  possibly  prove  himself 
to  be  right  or  his  adversary  to  be  wrong. 

Only,  there  may  come  some  one,  who  says  that  the 
basis  of  all  our  inference,  the  Supreme  Governor,  is 
not  the  order  of  nature,  is  an  assumption,  and  not  a 
fact ;  and  then,  if  this  is  so,  our  whole  superstructure 
falls  to  pieces  like  a  house  of  cards.  And  this  is  just 
what  is  happening  at  present.  The  masses,  with  their 
rude  practical  instinct,  go  straight  to  the  heart  of  the 
matter.  They  are  told  there  is  a  great  Personal  First 
Cause,  who  thinks  and  loves,  the  moral  and  intelli- 
gent Author  and  Governor  of  the  universe ;  and  that 
the  Bible  and  Bible-righteousness  come  to  us  from 
him.  Xow,  they  do  not  begin  by  asking,  with  the 
intelligent  Socinian,  whether  the  doctrine  of  the 
Atonement  is  worthy  of  this  moral  and  intelligent 
Ruler ;  they  begin  by  asking  what  proof  we  have  of 
him  at  all.  Moreover,  they  require  plain  experi- 
mental proof,  such  as  that  fire  burns  them  if  they 


310  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

touch  it.  If  they  are  to  study  and  obey  the  Bible  be- 
cause it  comes  from  the  Personal  First  Cause  who 
is  Governor  of  the  universe,  they  require  to  be  able 
to  ascertain  that  there  is  this  Governor,  just  as  they 
are  able  to  ascertain  that  fire  burns.  And  if  they 
cannot  ascertain  it,  they  will  let  the  intelligent  Socin- 
ian  perorate  about  the  Atonement  if  he  likes,  but  they 
themselves  pitch  the  whole  Bible  to  the  winds. 

Xow,  it  is  remarkable  what  a  resting  on  mere 
probabilities,  or  even  on  less  than  probabilities,-  the 
proof  for  religion  comes,  in  the  hands  of  its  great 
apologist,  Butler,  to  be,  even  after  he  has  started  with 
the  assumption  of  his  moral  and  intelligent  Governor. 
And  no  wonder;  for  in  the  primary  assumption  itself 
there  is  and  can  be  nothing  experimental  and  clearly 
known.  So  that  of  Christianity,  as  Butler  grounds 
it,  the  natural  criticism  would  really  be  in  these 
words  of  his  own  :  "  Suppositions  are  not  to  be  looked 
upon  as  true,  because  not  incredible."  However, 
Butler  maintains  that  in  matters  of  practice,  such  as 
religion,  this  is  not  so ;  in  them  it  is  prudent,  he  says, 
to  act  on  even  a  supposition,  if  it  is  not  incredible. 
Even  the  doubting  about  religion  implies,  he  argues, 
that  it  may  be  true.  Now,  in  matters  of  practice  \vc 
are  bound  in  prudence  to  act  upon  what  may  be  a 
low  degree  of  evidence;  yes,  even  though  it  be  so  low 
as  to  leave  the  mind  in  very  great  doubt  what  is  the 
truth. 

Was  there  ever  such  a  way  of  establishing  right- 
eousness heard  of  ?  And  suppose  we  tried  this  with 
rude,  hard,  downright  people1,  with  the  masses,  who 


OUR  "  MASSES  "  AND  THE  BIBLE.  3H 

for  what  is  told  them  want  a  plain  experimental 
proof,  such  as  that  fire  will  burn  you  if  you  touch  it. 
Whether  in  prudence  they  ought  to  take  the  Bible 
and  religion  on  a  low  degree  of  evidence  or  not,  it  is 
quite  certain  that  on  this  ground  they  never  will  take 
thorn.  And  it  is  quite  certain,  moreover,  that  never 
on  this  ground  did  Israel,  from  whom  we  derive  our 
religion,  take  it  himself  or  recommend  it.  He  did 
not  take  it  in  prudence,  because  he  found  at  any  rate 
a  low  degree  of  evidence  for  it ;  he  took  it  in  rapture, 
because  he  found  for  it  an  evidence  irresistible.  But 
his  own  words  are  the  best :  "  Thou,  O  Eternal,  art 
the  thing  that  I  long  for,  thou  art  my  hope  even  from 
my  youth ;  through  thee  have  I  been  holden  up  ever 
since  I  was  born  ;  there  is  nothing  sweeter  than  to  take 
heed  unto  the  commandments  of  the  Eternal.  The 
Eternal  is  my  .strength,  my  heart  hath  trusted  in  him 
and  I  am  helped;  therefore  my  heart  dancetli  for  joy, 
and  in  my  song  will  I  praise  him."  That  is  why 
Israel  took  his  religion. 

3. 

But  if  Israel  spoke  of  the  Eternal  thus,  it  was,  we 
say,  because  he  had  a  plain  experimental  proof  of 
him.  God  was  to  Israel  neither  an  assumption  nor  a 
metaphysical  idea ;  he  was  a  power  that  can  be  veri- 
fied as  much  as  the  power  of  fire  to  burn  or  of  bread 
to  nourish:  the  power,  not  ourselves,  that  makes  for 
righteousness*  And  the  greatness  of  Israel  in  re- 
ligion, the  reason  why  he  is  said  to  have  had  re- 
ligion revealed  to  him,  to  have  been  entrusted  with  the 


LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

oracles  of  God,  is  because  he  had  in  such  extraor- 
dinary force  and  vividness  the  perception  of  this 
power.  And  he  communicates  it  irresistibly  be- 
cause he  feels  it  irresistibly ;  that  is  why  the  Bible  is 
not  as  other  books  that  inculcate  righteousness. 
Israel  speaks  of  his  intuition  as  still  feeling  it  to  be 
an  intuition,  an  experience;  not  as  something  which 
others  have  delivered  to  him,  nor  yet  as  a  piece  of 
metaphysical  notion-building.  Anthropomorphic  he 
is  for  all  men  are,  and  especially  men  not  endowed 
with  the  Aryan  genius  for  abstraction;  but  he  dors 
not  make  arbitrary  assertions  which  can  never  be 
verified,  like  our  popular  religion,  nor  is  he  ever 
pseudo-scientific,  like  our  learned  religion. 

Il(  is  credited  with  the  metaphysical  ideas  of  the 
personality  of  God,  of  the  unity  of  God,  and  of  cre- 
ation as  opposed  to  evolution ;  ideas  depending,  the 
first  two  of  them,  on  notions  of  existence  and  of  iden- 
tity, the  last  of  them,  on  the  notion  of  cause  and  de- 
sign. But  he  is  credited  with  them  falsely.  All  the 
countenance  he  gives  to  the  metaphysical  idea  of  the 
]>ersonality  of  God  is  given  by  his  anthropomorphic 
language,  in  which,  being  a  man  himself,  he  nat- 
urally speaks  of  the  Power,  with  which  he  is  con- 
cerned, as  a  man  also.  So  he  snys  that  Moses  saw 
God's  hinder  parts;  and  he  gives  just  as  much  coun- 
tenance to  the  scientific  assertion  that  God  has  hinder 
parts,  as  to  the  scientific  assertion  of  God's  person- 
ality. That  is,  he  gives  no  countenance  at  all  to 
either.  As  to  his  asserting  the  unity  of  God  the  c 
is  the  same.  He  would  give,  indeed,  his  heart  and 


OUR  "  MASSES  "  AND  THE  BIBLE.  313 

his  worship  to  no  manifestation  of  power,  except  the 
power  which  makes  for  righteousness;  but  he  affords 
to  the  metaphysical  idea  of  the  unity  of  God  no  more 
countenance  than  this,  and  this  is  none  at  all.  Then, 
lastly,  as  to  the  idea  of  creation.  He  viewed,  indeed, 
all  order  as  depending  on  the  supreme  order  of  right- 
eousness, and  all  the  fulness  and  beauty  of  the  world 
as  a  boon  added  to  that  holder  of  the  greatest  of  all 
boons  already,  the  righteous;  this  is  as  much  counte- 
nance as  he  gives  to  the  famous  argument  from  de- 
sign, or  to  the  doctrine  of  creation  as  opposed  to  evo- 
lution. And  it  is  none  at  all. 

Free  as  is  his  use  of  anthropomorphic  language, 
Israel  has  far  too  keen  a  sense  of  reality  not  to  shrink, 
when  he  comes  anywhere  near  to  the  notion  of  exact 
speaking  about  God,  from  affirmation,  from  profess- 
ing to  know  a  whit  more  than  he  does  know.  "  Lo, 
these  are  parts  of  his  ways,"  he  says  of  what  he  has 
experienced,  "  but  how  little  a  portion  is  known  of 
him !  "  And  again:  "  The  secret  things  belong  unto 
the  Eternal  our  God;  but  the  revealed  things  belong 
unto  us  and  to  our  children  forever;  that  we  may  do 
nl!  the  words  of  this  law."  How  different  from  our 
license  of  full  and  particular  statement :  "  A  Per- 
sonal First  Cause,  who  thinks  and  loves,  the  moral 
and  intelligent  Governor  of  the  universe !  "  Israel 
knew,  of  the  Eternal  not  ouwh-cs.  that  it  was  "  a 
power  that  made  for  righteousness."  This  was  re- 
vealed to  Israel  ami  his  children,  and  through  them 
to  the  world ;  all  the  rest  about  the  Eternal  not  our- 
selves was  this  power's  own  secret.  And  all  Israel's 


LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

language  about  this  power,  except  that  it  makes  for 
rii/lifi-uitsness,  is  approximate  language, — the  lan- 
guage of  poetry  and  eloquence,  thrown  out  at  a  vast 
object  of  our  consciousness  not  fully  apprehended  by 
it,  but  extending  infinitely  beyond  it. 

This,  however,  was  "  a  revealed  thing,"  Israel 
said,  to  him  and  to  his  children :  "  the  Eternal  not 
ourselves  that  makes  for  righteousness."  And  now, 
then,  let  us  go  to  the  masses  with  what  Israel  really 
did  say,  instead  of  what  our  popular  and  our  learned 
religion  may  choose  to  make  him  say.  Let  us  an- 
nounce, not :  "  There  rules  a  great  Personal  First 
Cause,  who  thinks  and  loves,  the  moral  and  intelligent 
Governor  of  the  universe,  and  therefore  study  your 
Bible  and  learn  to  obey  this !  "  No ;  but  let  us  an- 
nounce :  "  There  rules  an  enduring  Power,  not  our- 
selves, which  makes  for  righteousness,  and  therefore 
study  your  Bible  and  learn  to  obey  this."  For  if 
wo  announce  the  other  instead,  and  they  reply : 
"  First  let  us  rcrify  that  there  rules  a  great  Personal 
First  Cause,  who  thinks  and  loves,  the  moral  and  in- 
telligent Governor  of  the  universe," — what  are  we  to 
answer  ?  we  cannot  answer. 

But  if,  on  the  other  hand,  they  ask:  "  How  are  wo 
to  rcrify  that  tin-re  rules  an  enduring  Power,  not. 
ourselves,  which  makes  for  righteous!!-  — we  may 

answer  at  once:  "How?  why,  as  you  verify  that 
fire  burns, — by  < '.<•/"•/ •icm-c!  It  is  so ;  try  it !  you  can 
try  it;  every  case-  of  conduct,  of  that  which  is  more 
than  three  fourth-  "f  y<>ur  own  life  and  of  the  life  of 
all  mankind,  will  prove  it  to  you.  Disbelieve  it, 


OUR  "  MASSES  "  AND  THE  BIULE.  315 

and  you  will  find  out  your  mistake,  as  sure  as  if  you 
disbelieve  that  fire  burns  and  put  your  hand  into 
the  fire,  you  will  find  out  your  mistake.  Believe  it, 
and  you  will  find  the  benefit  of  it."  This  is  the  first 
experience. 

But  then  they  may  go  on,  and  say:  "Why,  how- 
ever, if  there  is  an  enduring  Power,  not  ourselves, 
that  makes  for  righteousness,  should  we  study  the 
Bible  that  we  may  learn  to  ohey  him  '( — will  not  other 
teachers  or  books  do  as  well  ('"  And  here  again  the 
answer  is:  "  Why  (  why,  because  he  is  revealed  in 
Israel  and  the  Bible,  and  not  by  other  teachers  and 
books!  "  that  is,  there  is  infinitely  more  of  him  there, 
he  is  plainer  and  easier  i<>  come  at,  and  incomparably 
more  impressive.  If  you  want  to  know  plastic  art, 
you  go  to  the  Greeks;  if  you  want  to  know  science, 
you  go  to  the  Aryan  genius.  And  why  ?  Because 
they  have  the  specialty  for  these  things;  for  making 
us  feel  what  they  are  and  giving  us  an  enthusiasm  for 
them.  Well,  and  so  have  Israel  and  the  Bible  a 
specialty  for  righteousness,  for  making  us  feel  what 
it  is  and  giving  us  *an  enthusiasm  for  it.  And  here 
again  it  is  experience  that  we  invoke:  try  it!  Hav- 
ing convinced  yourself  that  there  is  an  enduring 
Power,  not  ourselves,  that  makes  for  righteousness, 
set  yourself  next  to  try  to  learn  more  about  this,  and 
to  feel  an  enthusiasm  for  this.  And  to  this  end. 
take  a  course  of  the  Bible  first,  and  then  a  course  of 
Benjamin  Franklin,  Horace  Greeley,  Jeremy  Bent- 
ham,  and  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer;  see  which  has  most 
effect,  which  satisfies  you  most,  which  gives  you  most 


316  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

power.  Why,  the  Bible  has  such  power  for  teaching 
righteousness,  that  even  to  those  who  come  to  it 
with  all  sorts  of  false  notions  about  the  God  of  the 
Bible,  it  yet  teaches  righteousness,  and  fills  them  with 
the  love  of  it;  how  much  more  those  who  come  to  it 
with  a  true  notion  about  the  God  of  the  Bible !  And 
this  is  the  second  experience. 


Now  here,  at  the  beginning  of  things,  is  the  point, 
we  say,  where  to  apply  correction  to  our  current  the- 
ology, if  we  are  to  bring  the  religion  of  the  Bihle 
home  to  the  masses.  It  is  of  no  use  beginning  lower 
down,  and  amending  this  or  that  ramification,  such  as 
the  Atonement,  or  the  Real  Presence,  or  Eternal 
Punishment,  when  the  root  from  which  all  sprini:-  i- 
unsound.  Those  whom  it  most  concerns  us  to  teach 
will  never  interest  themselves  at  all  in  our  amended 
religion,  so  long  as  the  whole  thing  appears  to  them 
unsupported  and  in  the  air. 

Vet  that  original  conception  of  God,  071  which  all 
our  religion  is  and  must  be  grounded,  has  been  very 
little  examined,  and  vn-y  I'm-  t.f  the  controversies 
which  arise  in  religion  go  near  it.  Keligious  people 
say  solemnly,  as  if  we  doubted  it,  that  '*  he  that  com- 
eth  to  God  must  believe  that  He  is,  and  that  He  is  a 
rewarder  them  of  that  seek  Him  ;  "  and  that  "  a  man 
who  preaches  that  Jesus  Christ  is  not  God  is  virtually 
out  of  the  pale  of  Christian  communion."  We  en- 
tirely agree  with  them;  but  we  want  to  know  what 


OUR  "  MASSES  "  AND  THE  BIBLE.  317 

they  mean  by  God.  Now  on  this  matter  the  state  of 
their  thoughts  is,  to  say  the  truth,  extremely  vague; 
but  what  they  really  do  at  bottom  mean  is,  in  gen- 
eral :  "  The  best  one  knows."  And  this  is  the  sound- 
est definition  they  will  ever  attain:  yet  scientifically 
it  is  not  a  satisfying  definition,  for  clearly  "  the  best 
one  knows  "  differs  for  everybody.  So  they  have  to 
be  more  precise ;  and  when  they  collect  themselves  a 
little,  they  find  that  they  mean  by  God  "  a  magnified 
ni id  non-natural  man."  But  this,  again,  they  can 
hardly  say  in  so  many  words ;  therefore  at  last,  when 
they  are  pressed,  they  collect  themselves  all  they  can, 
and  make  a  great  effort,  and  out  they  come  with  their 
piece  of  science:  God  is  "a  great  Personal  First 
Cause,  who  thinks  and  loves,  the  moral  and  intelli- 
gent Governor  of  the  universe."  But  this  piece  of 
science  of  theirs  we  will  have  nothing  to  say  to,  for 
we  account  it  quite  hollow;  and  we  say,  and  have 
shown  (we  think,)  that  the  Bible,  rightly  read, -will 
have  nothing  to  say  to  it  either.  Yet  the  whole  pinch 
of  the  matter  is  here ;  and  till  we  are  agreed  as  to 
what  we  mean  by  God,  we  can  never,  in  discussing 
religious  questions,  understand  one  another,  or  dis- 
cuss seriously.  Yet,  as  we  have  said,  hardly  any  of 
the  discussions  which  arise  in  religion  turn  upon  this 
cardinal  point.  This  is  what  cannot  but  strike  one 
in  that  torrent  of  petitiones  principii  (for  so  one 
really  must  call  it)  in  the  shape  of  theological  let- 
ters from  clergymen,  which  pours  itself  every  week 
in  the  columns  of  the  "  Guardian."  They  all  em- 
ploy the  word  God  with  such  extraordinary  coufi- 


LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

dence !  as  if  "  a  great  Personal  First  Cause,  who 
thinks  and  loves,  the  moral  and  intelligent  Governor 
of  the  universe,"  were  a  verifiable  fact  given  beyond 
all 'question ;  and  we  had  now  only  to  discuss  what 
such  a  being  would  naturally  think  about  Church 
vestments  and  the  use  of  the  Athanasian  Creed.  But 
everything  people  say,  under  these  conditions,  is  in 
truth  quite  in  the  air. 

I-]v(  11  tho<e  \\-ho  have  treated  Israel  and  his  religion 
the  most  philosophically,  seem,  not  to  have  enough 
considered  that  so  wonderful  an  effect  must  have  had 
some  <-ausc  to  account  for  it  other  than  any  they  as- 
sign. Professor  Kuenen,  whose  excellent  History 
of  the  Religion  of  Israel  *  ought  to  find  an  Eng- 
lish translator,  suggests  that  the  Hebrew  religion  was 
so  unlike  that  of  other  Semitic  people  because  of  the 
simple  and  austere  life  of  the  Beni-Israel  as  nomads 
of  the  desert ;.  or  because  they  did  not,  like  other  Se- 
mitic people,  put  a  feminine  divinity  alongside  of 
their  masculine  divinity,  and  thus  open  the  way  to 
all  sorts  of  immorality.  But  many  other  tribes  have 
had  the  simple  and  austere  life  of  nomads  of  the 
desert,  without  its  bringing  them  to  the  religion  of 
Israel.  And,  if  the  Hebrews  did  not  put  a  feminine 
divinity  alongside  of  their  masculine  divinity  while 
other  Semitic  people  did,  surely  there  must  have 
been  something  to  cause  this  difference!  and  what 
we  want  to  know  is  this  something. 

*  De  Godsdienst  van  Israel  tot  den  Ondcrrjang  vandenJonrt- 
•  stunt  i'l'h<-  Religion  of  Israel  till  the  Downfall  of  the 
,If\\  i<li  Stiit«->  :  Haarlem. 


OUR  "  MASSES  "  AND  THE  BIBLE.  319 

And  to  this  something,  I  say,  the  "  Zeit-Geist  "  and 
a  prolonged  and  large  experience  of  men's  expres- 
sions, and  how  they  employ  them,  leads  us.  It  was 
because  while  other  people,  in  the  operation  of  that 
mighty  not  ourselves  which  is  in  us  and  around  us, 
saw  this  thing  and  that  thing  and  many  things, 
Israel  saw  one  thing  only: — that  it  made  for  con- 
duct, for  righteousness.  And  it  does;  and  conduct 
is  nearly  the  whole  of  human  life.  And  hence, 
therefore,  the  extraordinary  reality  and  power  of 
Israel's  God  and  of  Israel's  religion.  And  the  more 
we  strictly  limit  ourselves,  in  attempting  to  give  a 
scientific  account  of  God,  to  Israel's  authentic  intui- 
tion of  him,  and  say  that  he  is  "  the  Eternal  Power, 
not  ourselves,  that  makes  for  righteousness,"  the 
more  real  and  profound  will  Israel's  words  about 
God  become  to  us,  for  we  can  then  verify  his  words 
as  we  use  them. 

"  Eternal,  Thou  hast  been  our  refuge  from  one  gen- 
eration to  another!  "  If  we  define  the  Eternal  to 
ourselves,  "  a  great  Personal  First  Cause,  who  thinks 
and  loves,  the  moral  and  intelligent  Governor  of  the 
universe,"  we  can  never  verify  that  this  has  from  age 
to  age  been  a  refuge  to  men.  But  if  we  define  the 
Eternal,  "  the  enduring  power,  not  ourselves,  that 
makes  for  righteousness,"  then  we  can  know  and  feel 
the  truth  of  what  we  say  when  we  declare :  "  Eternal, 
Thou  hast  been  our  refuge  from  one  generation  to 
another !  "  For  in  all  the  history  of  man  we  can 
verify  it.  Righteousness  has  been  salvation ;  and  to 
verify  the  God  of  Israel  in  man's  long  history  is  the 


320  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

most  animating,  the  most  exalting,  and  the  most  pure 
of  delights.  "  Blessed  is  the  nation  whose  God  is 
the  Eternal !  "  is  a  text,  indeed,  of  which  the  world 
offers  us  the  most  inexhaustible  and  the  most  marvel- 
lous illustration. 

Nor  is  the  change  here  proposed,  in  itself,  any  dif- 
ficult or  startling  change  in  our  habits  of  religious 
thought,  but  a  very  simple  one.  However,  simple 
as  is  this  change  to  be  made  high  up  and  at  the  out- 
set, it  undeniably  governs  everything  farther  down. 
Jesus  is  the  Son  of  God  ;  the  Holy  Spirit  is  the  Spirit 
of  truth  that  proceeds  from  God.  What  God  ?  "A 
great  Personal  First  Cause,  who  thinks  and  loves, 
the  moral  and  intelligent  Governor  of  the  universe," 
— to  whom  Jesus  and  the  Holy  Spirit  are  related  in 
the  way  described  in  the  Athanasian  Creed,  so  that 
the  operations  of  the  three  together  produce  what  the 
Westminster  divines  call  "  the  Contract  passed  in  the 
Council  of  the  Trinity,"  and  we,  for  plainness,  de- 
scribe  as  the  fairy-tale  of  the  three  Lord  Shat'fes- 
burys.  This  is  all  in  the  air,  but  in  the  air  it  all 
hangs  together.  There  stand  the  Bible  words!  h<>\v 
you  construe  them  depends  entirely  mi  the  definition 
of  God  you  start  with.  If  Jesus  is  the  Son  of  "  a 
great  Personal  First  Cause,"  then  the  words  of  the 
Bible,  literally  taken,  may  well  enough  lend  them- 
selves to  a  story  like  that  of  the  three  Lord  Shaft* -s- 
burys.  The  story  can  never  be  verified:  but  it  imiy 
nevertheless  be  what  the  Bible  means  to  say,  if  the 
Rihle  have  started,  as  theology  starts,  with  the 
"  Great  Personal  First  Cause."  And  the  story  m;iy. 


OUR    '  MASSES  "  AND  THE  BIBLE.  321 

when  it  comes  to  be  examined,  have  many  minor  dif- 
ficulties, have  things  to  baffle  us,  things  to  shock  us ; 
but  still  it  may  be  what  the  Bible  means  to  say. 
However,  the  masses  will  get  rid  of  all  minor  diffi- 
culties in  the  simplest  manner,  by  rejecting  the  Bible 
altogether  on  account  of  the  major  difficulty, — its 
starting  with  an  assumption  which  cannot  possibly  be 
verified. 

But  suppose  the  Bible  is  discovered,  when  its  ex- 
pressions are  rightly  understood,  to  start  with  an 
assertion  which  can  be  verified ;  the  assertion,  namely, 
not  of  "  a  great  Personal  First  Cause,"  but  of  "  an 
enduring  Power,  not  ourselves,  that  makes  for  right- 
eousness." Then  by  the  light  of  this  discovery  we 
read  and  understand  all  the  expressions  that  follow. 
Jesus  comes  forth  from  this  enduring  Power  that 
makes  for  righteousness,  is  sent  by  this  Power,  is  this 
Power's  Son;  the  Holy  Spirit  proceeds  from  this 
same  Power,  and  so  on. 

Now,  from  the  innumerable  minor  difficulties  that 
attend  the  story  of  the  three  Lord  Shaftesburys,  this 
right  construction,  put  on  what  the  Bible  says  of 
Jesus,  of  the  Father,  and  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  is  free. 
But  it  is  free  from  the  major  difficulty  also;  for  it 
neither  depends  upon  what  is  unverifiable,  nor  is  it 
unverifiable  itself.  That  Jesus  is  the  Son  of  a  great 
Personal  First  Cause  is  itself  unverifiable ;  and  that 
there  is  a  great  Personal  First  Cause  is  unverifiable 
too.  But  that  there  is  an  enduring  power,  not  our- 
selves, which  makes  for  righteousness,  is  verifiable, 
as  we  have  seen,  by  experience ;  and  that  Jesus  is  the 


322  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

offspring  of  this  power  is  verifiable  from  experience 
also.  For  God  is  the  author  of  righteousness;  now, 
Jesus  is  the  Son  of  God  because  he  gives  the  method 
and  secret  by  which  alone  is  righteousness  possible. 
And  that  he  docs  give  this,  we  can  verify,  again,  from 
experience:  it  is  so!  try,  and  you  will  find  it  to  be 
so.  Try  all  the  ways  to  righteousness  you  can  think  of, 
and  you  will  find  that  no  way  brings  you  to  it  except 
the  way  of  Jesus,  but  that  this  way  does  bring  you  to 
it.  And,  therefore,  as  we  found  we  could  say  to  the 
masses:  "Attempt  to  do  without  Israel's  God  that 
makes  for  righteousness,  and  you  will  find  out  your 
mistake !  " — so  we  find  we  can  now  go  on  farther,  and 
say:  "Attempt  to  reach  righteousness  by  any  vmj 
except  that  of  Jesus,  and  you  will  find  out  your  mis- 
take !  "  This  is  a  thing  that  can  prove  itself,  if  it  is 
so ;  and  it  will  prove  itself,  because  it  is  so. 

Thus  we  have  the  authority  of  both  Old  and 
New  Testament  placed  on  just  the  same  solid  basi<  a- 
the  authority  of  the  injunction  to  take  food  and  n 
namely,  that  experience  proves  we  cannot  do  without 
them.  And  we  have  neglect  of  the  Bible  punished 
just  as  putting  one's  hand  into  the  fin-  i<  punished: 
namely,  by  finding  we  are  the  worse  \'«r  it.  Only, 
to  attend  to  this  experience  about  the  Dihle  nrrd- 
more  steadiness  than  to  attend  \»  the  momentary  im- 
pressions of  hunger,  fatigue,  and  pain:  therefore  it 
is  called  faith,  and  counted  a  virtue.  But  the  ap 
peal  is  to  experience  in  this  case  just  as  much  as  in 
the  other;  only  to  experience  of  a  far  deeper  and 
greater  kind. 


OUR  "  MASSES  "  AND  THE  BIBLE.  323 

5. 

So  there  is  no  doubt  that  we  get  a  much  firmer,  nay 
an  impregnable,  ground  for  the  Bible,  and  for  recom- 
mending it  to  the  world,  if  we  put  the  construction 
on  it  we  propose.  The  only  question  is:  Is  this  the 
right  construction  to  put  on  it  ?  is  it  the  construction 
which  properly  belongs  to  the  Bible  ?  And  here, 
again,  our  appeal  is  to  the  same  test  which  we  have 
employed  throughout,  the  only  possible  test  for  men 
to  employ, — the  test  of  reason  and  experience.  Given 
the  Bible  documents,  what,  it  is  required,  is  the  right 
construction  to  put  upon  them  ?  Is  it  the  construc- 
tion we  propose  ?  or  is  it  the  construction  of  the  the- 
ologians, according  to  which  the  dogmas  of  the  Trin- 
ity, the  Incarnation,  the  Atonement,  and  so  on,  are 
presupposed  all  through  the  Bible,  are  sometimes 
latent,  sometimes  come  more  visibly  to  the  surface, 
but  are  always  there ;  and  to  them  every  word  in  the 
Bible  has  reference,  plain  or  figured  ? 

Now,  the  Bible  does  not  and  cannot  tell  us  itself, 
in  black  and  white,  what  is  the  right  construction  to 
put  upon  it ;  we  have  to  make  this  out.  And  the  only 
possible  way  to  make  it  out — for  the  dogmatists  to 
make  out  their  construction,  or  for  us  to  make  out 
ours — is  by  reason  and  experience.  "  Even  such  as 
are  readiest,"  says  Hooker,  very  well,  "  to  cite  for  one 
thing  five  hundred  sentences  of  Scripture,  what  war- 
rant have  they  that  any  one  of  them  doth  mean  the 
thing  for  which  it  is  alleged  ?  "  They  can  have  none, 
he  replies,  but  reasoning  and  collection;  and  to  the 


324:  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

same  effect  Butler  says  of  reason,  that  "  it  is  indeed 
the  only  faculty  we  have  wherewith  to  judge  con- 
cerning anything,  even  revelation  itself."  Now  it  is 
simply  from  experience  of  the  human  spirit  and  its 
productions,  from  observing  as  widely  as  we  can  the 
manner  in  which  men  have  thought,  their  way  of 
using  words  and  what  they  mean  by  them,  and  from 
reasoning  upon  this  observation  and  experience,  that 
we  conclude  the  construction  theologians  put  upon  the 
Bible  to  be  false,  and  ours  to  be  the  truer  one. 

In  the  first  place,  from  Israel's  master-feeling,  the 
feeling  for  righteousness,  the  predominant  sense  that 
men  are,  as  St.  Paul  says,  "  created  unto  good  works 
which  God  hath  prepared  beforehand  that  we  should 
walk  in  them,"  we  collect  the  origin  of  Israel's  con- 
ception of  God, — of  that  mighty  not  ourselves  which 
more  or  less  engages  all  men's  attention, — as  the 
Eternal  Power  that  makes  for  righteousness.  This 
we  do,  because  the  more  we  come  to  know  how  ideas 
and  terms  arise,  and  what  is  their  character,  the  more 
this  explanation  of  Israel's  use  of  the  word  "  God  " 
seems  the  true  and  natural  one.  Again,  the  con- 
struction we  put  upon  the  doctrine  and  work  of  Jesus 
is  collected  in  the  same  way.  From  the  data  we  have, 
and  from  comparison  of  these  data  with  what  we  have 
besides  of  the  history  of  ideas  and  expressions,  this 
construction  seems  to  us  the  true  and  natural  one. 
The  Gospel  narratives  are  just  that  sort  of  account 
of  such  a  work  and  teaching  as  the  work  and  teaching 
of  Christ,  according  to  our  construction  of  it,  was, 
which  would  naturally  have  been  given  by  devotee! 


OUR  "  MASSES  "  AND  THE  BIBLE.  325 

followers  who  did  not  fully  understand  it.  And  un- 
derstand it  fully  they  then  could  not,  it  was  so  very 
new,  great,  and  profound ;  only  time  gradually  brings 
its  lines  out  more  clear. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  theologians'  notion  of  dog- 
mas presupposed  in  the  Bible,  and  of  a  constant  latent 
reference  to  them,  we  reject,  because  experience  is 
against  it.  The  more  we  know  of  the  history  of 
ideas  and  expressions,  the  more  we  are  convinced 
that  this  account  is  not  and  cannot  be  the  true  one; 
that  the  theologians  have  credited  the  Bible  with  this 
presupposition  of  dogmas  and  this  constant  latent 
reference  to  them,  but  that  they  are  not  really  there. 
"The  Fathers  recognized,"  says  Dr.  Newman,  "a  cer- 
tain truth  lying  hid  under  the  tenor  of  the  sacred  text 
as  a  whole,  and  showing  itself  more  or  less  in  this 
verse  or  that,  as  it  might  be.  The  Fathers  might 
have  traditionary  information  of  the  general  drift  of 
the  inspired  text  which  we  have  not."  Born  into 
the  world  twenty  years  later,  and  touched  with  the 
breath  of  the  "  Zeit-Geist,"  how  would  this  exquisite 
and  delicate  genius  have  been  himself  the  first  to  feel 
the  unsoundness  of  all  this!  that  we  have  heard  the 
like  about  other  books  before,  and  that  it  always 
turns  out  to  be  not  so,  that  the  right  interpretation 
of  a  document,  such  as  the  Bible,  is  not  in  this  fash- 
ion. Homer's  poetry  was  the  Bible  of  the  Greeks, 
however  strange  a  one ;  and  just  in  the  same  way 
there  grew  up  the  notion  of  a  mystical  and  inner  sense 
in  the  poetry  of  Homer,  underlying  the  apparent 
sense,  but  brought  to  light  by  the  commentators ;  per- 


326  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

haps,  even,  they  might  have  traditionary  information 
of  the  drift  of  the  Homeric  poetry  which  we  have 
not ; — who  knows  ?  But,  once  for  all,  as  our  literary 
experience  widens,  this  notion  of  a  secret  sense  in 
Homer  proves  to  be  a  mere  dream.  So,  too,  is  the 
notion  of  a  secret  sense  in  the  Bible,  and  of  the  Fath- 
ers' disengagement  of  it. 

Demonstration  in  these  matters  is  impossible ;  it 
is  a  maintainable  thesis  that  the  allegorizing  of  the 
Fathers  is  right,  and  that  this  is  the  true  sense  of  the 
Bible.  It  is  a  maintainable  thesis  that  the  theological 
dogmas  of  the  Trinity,  the  Incarnation,  and  the 
Atonement  underlie  the  whole  Bible.  It  is  a  main- 
tainable thesis,  on  the  other  hand,  that  Jesus  was 
himself  immersed  in  the  Aberglaube  of  his  nation 
and  time,  and  that  his  disciples  have  reported  him 
with  absolute  fidelity;  in  this  case  we  should  have, 
in  our  estimate  of  Jesus,  to  make  deductions  for  his 
Aberglaube,  and  to  admire  him  for  the  insight  he  dis- 
played in  spite  of  it.  This  thesis,  we  repeat,  or  that 
thesis,  or  another  thesis,  is  maintainable,  as  to  the 
construction  to  be  put  on  such  a  document  as  tin- 
Bible.  Absolute  demonstration  is  impossible,  ami 
the  only  question  is:  Does  experience,  as  it  widens 
and  deepens,  make  for  this  or  that  thesis,  or  mako 
against  it  ?  And  the  great  thing  against  any  such 
1  IK -sis  as  either  of  the  two  we  have  just  mentioned  is, 
that  the  more  we  know  of  the  history  of  the  human 
spirit  and  its  deliverances,  the  more  we  have  reason 
to  think  such  a  thesis  improbable,  and  it  loses  hold  on 
our  assent  ni<>iv  ;md  iimm  On  the  other  hand,  the 


OUR  "  MASSES  "  AND  THE  BIBLE.  327 

great  tiling,  as  we  believe,  in  favor  of  such  a  con- 
struction as  we  put  upon  the  Bible  is,  that  experience, 
as  it  increases,  constantly  confirms  it;  and  that, 
though  it  cannot  command  assent,  it  will  be  found  to 
win  assent  more  and  more. 


CHAPTER  XL 

THE  TRUE   GREATNESS   OF  THE   OLD  TESTAMENT. 

WIN  assent  in  the  end  the  new  construction  will, 
but  not  at  once ;  and  there  will  be  a  passage-time  of 
confusion  first.  It  is  not  for  nothing,  as  we  have 
said,  that  people  take  short  cuts  and  tell  themselves 
fairy-tales,  because  the  immense  scale  of  the  history 
of  "  bringing  in  everlasting  righteousness  "  is  too 
much  for  their  narrow  minds.  It  is  not  for  nothing; 
they  pay  for  it.  It  is  not  for  nothing  that  they  found 
religion  on  prediction  and  miracle,  guarantee  it  l>y 
supernatural  interventions  and  the  coming  of  the  Son 
of  Man  in  the  clouds,  consummate  it  by  a  1  unit | net 
with  Abraham,  Isaac,  and  Jacob,  in  a  city  shining 
with  gold  and  precious  stones.  They  are  like  people 
who  have  fed  their  minds  on  novels  or  their  stomachs 
on  opium;  the  reality  of  things  is  flat  and  insipid  to 
them,  although  it  is  in  truth  far  grander  than  the 
phantasmagorical  world  of  novels  and  opium.  But 
it  is  long  before  the  novel-reader  or  opium-eater  can 
rid  himself  of  his  bad  habits,  and  brace  his  nerves, 
and  recover  the  tone  of  his  mind  enough  to  see  it. 
Distress  and  despair  at  the  loss  of  his  accustomed 
stimulant  are  his  first  sensations. 

Miracles   the  mainstay  of  popular  religion,   arc 
328 


TRUE  GREATNESS  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT.      329 

touched  by  Ithuriel's  spear.  They  are  beginning  to 
dissolve ;  but  what  are  we  to  expect  during  the 
process?  Probably,  amongst  many  religious  people, 
vehement  efforts  at  reaction,  a  recrudescence  of  su- 
perstition ;  the  passionate  resolve  to  keep  hold  on 
what  is  slipping  away  from  them  by  giving  up  more 
and  more  the  use  of  reason  in  religion,  and  by  rest- 
ing more  and  more  on  authority.  The  Church  of 
Rome  is  the  great  upholder  of  authority  as  against 
reason  in  religion ;  and  it  will  be  strange  if  in  the 
coming  time  of  transition  the  Church  of  Rome  does 
not  gain. 

But  for  many  more  than  those  whom  Rome  at- 
tracts, there  will  be  an  interval,  between  the  time 
when  men  take  the  religion  of  the  Bible  to  be  a  thau- 
maturgy  and  the  time  when  they  perceive  it  to  be 
something  different,  in  which  they  will  be  prone  to 
throw  aside  the  religion  of  the  Bible  altogether  as  a 
delusion.  And  this,  again,  will  be  mainly  the  fault 
— if  fault  that  can  be  called  which  was  an  inevitable 
error — of  the  religious  people  themselves,  who,  from 
the  time  of  the  Apostles  downwards,  have  insisted 
upon  it  that  religion  shall  be  a  thaumaturgy  or  noth- 
ing. For  very  many,  therefore,  when  it  cannot  be  a 
thaumaturgy,  it  will  be  nothing.  And  very  likely 
there  will  come  a  day  when  there  will  be  less  religion 
than  even  now ;  for  the  religion  of  the  Bible  is  so 
simple  and  powerful  that  even  those  who  make  the 
Bible  a  thaumaturgy  get  hold  of  it,  because  they 
read  the  Bible;  but  if  men  do  not  read  the  Bible, 
they  cannot  get  hold  of  it.  And  then  will  be  ful- 


330  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

filled  the  saying  of  the  prophet  Amos :  "  Behold,  the 
days  come,  saith  the  Eternal,  that  I  will  send  a 
famine  in  the  land,  not  a  famine  of  bread,  nor  a 
thirst  for  water,  but  of  hearing  the  words  of  the 
Eternal ;  and  they  shall  wander  from  sea  to  sea,  and 
from  the  north  even  to  the  east  they  shall  run  to  and 
fro  to  seek  the  word  of  the  Eternal,  and  shall  not 
find  it." 

Nevertheless,  as  after  this  mournful  prophecy  the 
herdsman  of  Tekoah  goes  on  to  say :  "  There  shall 
yet  not  the  least  grain  of  Israel  fall  to  the  earth !  " 
To  the  Bible  men  will  return;  and  why?  Because 
they  cannot  do  without  it.  Because  happiness  is  OUT 
being's  end  and  aim,  and  happiness  belongs 
to  righteousness,  and  righteousness  is  revealed  in 
the  Bible.  For  this  simple  reason  men  will 
return  to  the  Bible,  just  as  a  man  who  tried 
to  give  up  food,  thinking  it  was  a  vain  thing 
and  he  could  do  without  it,  would  return  to 
food;  or  a  man  who  tried  to  give  up  sleep,  thinking 
it  was  a  vain  thing  and  lie  could  do  without  it,  would 
return  to  sleep.  Then  there  will  come  a  time  of  re- 
construction ;  and  then,  perhaps,  will  be  the  moment 
for  labors  like  this  essay  of  ours  to  be  found  useful. 
Tor  though  every  one  must  read  the  Bible  for  himself, 
and  the  perfect  criticism  of  it  is  an  immense  matter, 
and  it  maybe  possible  to  go  much  beyond  what  we  here 
achieve  or  can  achieve,  yet  the  method  for  reading 
the  Bible  we,  as  we  hope  and  believe,  here  give.  And 
t hoii-ili,  in  this  or  that  detail,  the  construction  we  put 
upon  the  Bible  may  be  wrong,  yet  the  main  lines  of 


TRCE  GREATNESS  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT.      331 

the  construction  will  be  found,  we  hope  and  believe, 
right;  and  the  reader  who  has  the  main  lines  may 
easily  amend  the  details  for  himself. 


2. 


Meanwhile,  to  popular  Christianity,  from  those 
who  can  see  its  errors,  is  due  an  indulgence  inexhaust- 
ible, except  where  limits  are  required  to  it  for  the 
good  of  religion  itself.  Two  considerations  make  this 
indulgence  right :  one  is,  that  the  language  of  the 
Bible  being — which  is  the  great  point  a  sound  criti- 
cism establishes  against  dogmatic  theology — approxi- 
mate not  scientific,  in  all  expressions  of  religious  feel- 
ing approximate  language  is  lawful,  and  indeed  is 
all  we  can  attain  to.  It  cannot  be  adequate,  more  or 
less  proper  it  can  be;  but,  in  general,  approximate 
language  consecrated  by  use  and  religious  feeling  ac- 
quires therefrom  a  propriety  of  its  own.  That  is  the 
first  consideration.  The  second  is,  that  on  the 
"  method  "  and  "  secret  "  of  Jesus  popular  Chris- 
tianily  in  no  contemptible  measure  both  can  and  does, 
as  we  have  said,  lay  hold,  in  spite  of  its  inadequate 
criticism  of  the  Bible.  Now,  to  lay  hold  on  the 
method  and  secret  of  Jesus  is  a  very  great  thing;  an 
inadequate  criticism  of  the  Bible  is  a  comparatively 
small  one. 

Certainly  this  consideration  should  govern  our  way 
of  regarding  many  things  in  popular  Christianity; — 
its  missions,  for  instance.  The  non-Christian  re- 
ligions are  not  to  the  wise  man  mere  monsters;  he 

' 


332  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

knows  they  have  much  good  and  truth  in  them.  He 
knows  that  Mahometanism  and  Brahminism,  and 
Buddhism  are  not  what  the  missionaries  call  them  : 
and  he  knows,  too,  how  really  unfit  the  missionaries 
are  to  cope  with  them.  For  any  one  who  weighs  tin- 
matter  well,  the  missionary  in  clerical  coat  and 
gaiters  whom  one  sees  in  woodcuts  preaching  to  a 
group  of  picturesque  Orientals,  is,  from  the  inade- 
quacy of  his  criticisms  both  of  his  hearers'  religion 
and  of  his  own,  and  his  signal  misunderstanding  of 
the  very  Volume  he  holds  in  his  hand,  a  hardly  less 
grotesque  object  in  his  intellectual  equipment  for  his 
task  than  in  his  outward  attire.  Yet  every  one  al- 
lows that  this  strange  figure  carries  something  "f 
what  is  called  European  civilization  with  him,  and  a 
good  part  of  this  is  due  to  Christianity.  But  i-v»  n 
the  Christianity  itself  that  he  preaches,  imbedded  in 
a  false  theology  though  it  be,  cannot  but  contain,  in 
a  greater  or  lesse?  measure  as  it  may  happen,  these 
three  things: — the  all-importance  of  righteousness, 
the  method  of  Jesus,  the  secret  of  Jesus.  Xo  Chris- 
tianity that  is  ever  preached  but  manages  to  carry 
something  of  these  along  with  it. 

And  if  it  carries  them  to  Mahometanism,  they  are 
carried  where  of  the  all-importance  of  righteousness 
there  is  a  knowledge,  but  of  the  method  and  secret 
of  Jesus,  by  which  alone  is  righteousness  possible, 
hardly  any  sense  at  all.  If  it  carries  them  to  Brah- 
minism, they  are  carried  where  of  the  all-importance 
of  righteousness,  the  foundation  of  the  whole  matter, 
there  is  a  wholly  insufficient  sense;  and  wherr  r< 


TRUE  GREATNESS  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT.      333 

ligion  is,  above  all,  the  metaphysical  conception,  or 
metaphysical  play,  so  dear  to  the  Aryan  genius  and 
to  M.  Emile  Burnouf.  If  it  carries  them  to  Budd- 
hism, they  are  carried  to  a  religion  to  be  saluted  with 
respect,  indeed  ;  for  it  has  not  only  the  sense  for  right- 
eousness, it  has,  even,  it  has  the  secret  of  Jesus.  But 
it  employs  the  secret  ill,  because  greatly  wanting  in 
the  method,  because  utterly  wanting  in  the  sweet  rea- 
sonableness, the  unerring  balance,  the  epieikeia. 
Therefore,  to  all  whom  it  visits,  the  Christianity  of 
our  missions,  inadequate  as  may  be  its  criticism  of 
the  Bible,  brings  what  may  do  them  good.  And  if 
it  brings  the  Bible  itself,  it  brings  what  may  not  only 
help  the  good  preached,  but  may  also  with  time  dissi- 
pate the  erroneous  criticism  which  accompanies  this 
and  impairs  it.  All  this  is  to  be  said  for  popular  re- 
ligion ;  and  it  all  makes  in  favor  of  treating  popular 
religion  tenderly,  of  sparing  it  as  much  as  possible, 
of  trusting  to  time  and  indirect  means  to  transform 
it,  rather  than  to  sudden,  violent  changes. 

3. 

Learned  religion,  however,  the  pseudo-science  of 
dogmatic  theology,  merits  no  such  indulgence.  It 
is  a  separable  accretion,  which  never  had  any  busi- 
ness to  be  attached  to  Christianity,  never  did  it  any 
good,  and  now  does  it  great  harm,  and  thickens  an 
hundred-fold  the  religious  confusion  in  which  we 
live.  Attempts  to  adopt  it,  to  put  a  new  sense  into 
it,  to  make  it  plausible,  are  the  mo?t  misspent 


334  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

in  the  world.      Certainly  no  religious  reformer  who 
tries  it,  or  has  tried  it,  will  find  his  work  live. 

Nothing  is  more  common,  indeed,  than  for  re- 
ligious writers  who  have  a  strong  sense  of  the  genuine 
and  moral  side  of  Christianity  and  much  enlarge  on 
the  pre-eminence  of  this,  to  put  themselves  right,  as 
it  were,  with  dogmatic  theology,  by  a  passing  sentence 
expressing  profound  belief  in  its  dogmas,  though  in 
discussing  them,  it  is  implied,  there  is  little  profit. 
So  Mr.  Erskine  of  Linlathcn,  that  unwearying  and 
much-revered  exponent  of  the  moral  side  of  the  Bible : 
"  It  seems  difficult,"  he  says,  "  to  conceive  that  any 
man  should  read  through  the  New  Testament  can- 
didly and  attentively,  without  being  convinced  that 
the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  is  essential  to  and  implied 
in  every  part  of  the  system."  Even  already  many 
readers  of  Mr.  Erskine  feel,  when  they  e<>me  across 
such  a  sentence  as  that,  as  if  they  had  suddenly  taken 
gravel  or  sand  into  their  mouth.  Twenty  years 
hence  this  feeling  will  be  far  stronger  ;  the  reader  will 
drop  the  book,  saying  that  certainly  it  can  avail  him 
nothing.  So,  also,  Bunsen  was  fond  of  saying,  put- 
ting some  peculiar  meaning  of  his  own  into  the  words, 
that  the  whole  of  Christianity  was  in  the  Lutheran 
doctrine  of  justification  by  faith.  Thus,  too,  tin- 
Bishop  of  Exeter  chooses  to  say  that  his  main  objec- 
tion to  keeping  the  Athanasian  ('reed  i>,  that  it  en- 
dangers the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  which  is  so  im- 
portant. Mr.  Maurice,  again,  that  pure  and  devout 
spirit, — of  whom,  however,  the  truth  must  at  last  be 
said,  that  in  theology  he  passed  his  life  beating  the 


TRUE  GREATNESS  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT.      335 

bush  with  deep  emotion,  and  never  starting  the  hare, 
—Mr.  Maurice  declared  that  by  reading  between  the 
lines  he  saw  in  the  Thirty-nine  Articles  and  the 
Athanasian  Creed  the  altogether  perfect  expression 
of  the  Christian  faith. 

But  all  this  is  mischievous  as  well  as  vain.  It  is 
vain,  because  it  is  meant  to  conciliate  the  so-called 
orthodox,  and  it  does  not  conciliate  them.  Of  his 
attachment  to  the  doctrine -of  the  Trinity  the  Bishop 
of  Exeter  may  make  what  protestations  he  will,  Arch- 
doacon  Denison  will  still  smell  a  rat  in  them ;  and  the 
time  has  passed  when  Bunsen's  Evangelical  phrases 
could  fascinate  the  Evangelicals.  Such  language, 
however,  does  also  actual  harm,  because  it  proceeds 
from  a  misunderstanding  and  prolongs  it.  For  it 
may  be  well  to  read  between  the  lines  of  a  man  labor- 
ing with  an  experience  he  cannot  utter;  but  to  read 
between  the  lines  of  a  notion-work  is  absurd,  for  it 
is  of  the  essence  of  a  notion-work  not  to  need  it.  And 
the  Athanasian  Creed  is  a  notion-work,  of  which  the 
fault  is  that  its  basis  is  a  chimera.  It  is  an  applica- 
tion of  the  forms  of  Greek  logic  to  a  chimera,  its  own 
notion  of  the  Trinity,  a  notion  unestablished,  not 
resting  on  observation  and  experience,  but  assumed 
to  be  given  in  Scripture,  yet  not  really  given  there. 
Indeed  the  very  expression,  the  Trinity,  jars  with  the 
whole  idea  and  character  of  Bible  religion ;  but,  lest 
the  Socinian  should  be  unduly  elated  at  hearing  this, 
let  us  hasten  to  add  that  so  too,  and  just  as  much,  does 
the  expression,  a  great  Personal  First  Cause. 

Learned  pseudo-science  applied  to  the  data  of  the 


336  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

Bible  is  best  called  plainly  what  it  is, — utter  blunder ; 
criticism  of  the  same  order,  and  of  which  the  futility 
will  one  day  be  just  as  visible,  as  that  criticism  about 
the  two  swords  which  we  have  quoted.  To  try  to 
tinker  such  criticism  only  makes  matters  worse;  the 
best  way  is  to  throw  it  aside  altogether,  and  forget  it 
as  fast  as  possible.  This  is  what  the  good  of  re- 
ligion demands,  and  what  all  the  enemies  of  religion 
would  most  deprecate.  The  hour  for  softening  down, 
and  explaining  away,  is  passed ;  the  whole  false  no- 
tion-work has  to  go.  Mild  defences  of  it  leave  on  the 
mind  a  sense  of  the  defender's  hopeless  inability  ti> 
perceive  our  actual  situation ;  violent  defences,  such 
as  Archdeacon  Denison's,  read,  alas !  only  like  "  a 
tale  told  by  an  idiot,  full  of  sound  and  fury,  signify- 
ing nothing." 

4. 

But  the  great  work  to  be  done  for  the  better  time 
which  will  arrive,  and  for  the  time  of  transition 
which  will  precede  it,  is  not  a  work  of  destruction, 
but  to  show  that  the  truth  is  really,  as  it  is,  incom- 
parably higher,  grander,  more  wide  and  deep-reach- 
ing, than  the  Aberglaube  and  false  science  which 
it  displaces. 

The  propounders  of  "  The  great  Personal  First 
Cause,  who  thinks  and  loves,"  are  too  modest  when 
they  sometimes  say,  taking  their  lesson  from  the 
Bible,  iliat,  after  all,  men  can  know  next  to  nothing 
of  the  Divine  nature.  They  do  themselves  <i^-n:il 
injustice;  they  themselves  know  a  great  deal,  far  too 


TRUE  GREATNESS  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT.      337 

much.  They  know  so  much,  that  they  make  of  God 
a  magnified  and  non-natural  man,  a  sort,  as  we  have 
said,  of  infinitely  extended  Lord  Shaftesbury;  and 
when  this  leads  them  into  difficulties,  and  they  think 
to  escape  these  by  saying  that  God's  ways  are  not 
man's  ways,  they  do  not  succeed  in  making  their  God 
cease  to  resemble  a  man,  they  only  make  him  resem- 
ble a  man  puzzled.  But  the  truth  is,  that  one  may 
have  a  great  respect  for  Lord  Shaftesbury,  and  yet 
be  permitted,  even  however  much  he  be  magnified, 
to  imagine  something  far  beyond  him.  And  this  is 
the  good  of  such  an  unpretending  definition  of  God 
as  ours :  "  the  Eternal  Power,  not  ourselves,  that 
makes  for  righteousness ;  "  —it  leaves  the  infinite  to 
the  imagination,  and  to  the  gradual  efforts  of  count- 
less ages  of  men,  slowly  feeling  after  more  of  it  and 
finding  it.  Ages  and  ages  hence,  no  such  adequate 
definition  of  the  infinite  not  ourselves  will  yet  be  pos- 
sible, as  any  sciolist  of  a  theologian  will  now  pretend 
to  rattle  you  off  in  a  moment.  But  on  one  point 
of  the  operation  of  this  not  ourselves  we  are  clear: 
that  it  makes  for  conduct,  righteousness.  So  far  we 
know  God,  that  he  is  "  the  Eternal  that  loveth  right- 
eousness; "  and  the  farther  we  go  in  righteousness, 
the  more  we  shall  know  him. 

And  as  this  true  and  authentic  God  of  Israel  is  far 
grander  than  the  God  of  popular  religion,  so  is  his 
real  affirmation  of  himself  in  human  affairs  far 
grander  than  that  poor  machinery  of  prediction  and 
miracle,  by  which  popular  religion  imagines  that  he 
affirms  himself.  The  greatness  of  the  scale  on  which 
22 


338  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

he  operates  makes  it  hard  for  men  to  follow  him  ; 
but  the  greatness  of  the  scale,  too,  makes  the  gran- 
deur of  the  operation.  "  As  the  whirlwind  passetli, 
so  is  the  wicked  no  more;  but  the  righteous  is  an 
everlasting  foundation."  And  again:  "They  shall 
call  Jerusalem  the  throne  of  the  Eternal,  and  all  the 
nations  shall  be  gathered  unto  it."  "  Men  are  impa- 
tient and  for  precipitating  things,"  says  IJutler;  and 
Davison,  whom  on  a  former  occasion  we  quoted  to 
differ  from  him, — Davison,  not  the  least  memorable 
of  that  Oriel  group,  whose  reputation  I,,  above  most 
people,  am  bound  to  cherish, — says  with  a  weighty 
and  noble  simplicity  worthy  of  Butler:  "  Conscience 
and  the  present  constitution  of  things  are  not  corre- 
sponding terms;  it  is  conscience  and  the  issue  of 
things  which  go  together."  It  is  so;  and  this  is  what 
makes  the  spectacle  of  human  affairs  so  edifying  and 
so  sublime.  Give  time  enough  for  the  experience, 
and  experimentally  and  demonstrahly  it  is  true,  that 
"the  path  of  the  just  is  as  the  shining  light  which 
shineth  more  and  more  unto  the  perfect  day."  Only 
the  limits  for  the  experience  are  \vider  than  people 
think.  "  Yet  a  little  while,  and  the  ungodly  shall  be 
clean  gone!  "  but  a  little  while  according  to  the  scope 
and  working  of  that  mighty  Power,  to  which  a  thou- 
sand years  are  as  one  day.  The  world  goes  on,  na- 
tions and  men  arrive  and  depart,  with  varying  for- 
tune, as  it  appears,  with  time  and  chance  happening 
unto  all.  Look  a  little  deep,  r,  and  you  will  see  that 
one  strain  runs  through  it  all :  nations  and  men,  who- 
ever is  shipwrecked,  is  shipwrecked  on  conduct.  It 


TRUE  GREATNESS  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT.      339 

is  the  God  of  Israel  steadily  and  irresistibly  asserting 
himself;  the  Eternal  that  loveth  righteousness. 

In  this  sense  we  should  read  the  Hebrew  prophets. 
They  did  not  foresee  and  foretell  curious  coinci- 
dences, but  they  foresaw  and  foretold  this  inevitable 
triumph  of  righteousness.  First,  they  foretold  it  for 
all  the  men  and  nations  of  their  own  day,  and  espe- 
cially for  those  colossal  unrighteous  kingdoms  of  the 
heathen  which  looked  everlasting;  then,  for  all  time. 
"  As  the  whirlwind  passeth,  so  is  the  wicked  no 
more ;  "  sooner  or  later  it  is,  it  must  be,  so.  Hebrew 
prophecy  is  never  read  aright  until  it  is  read  in  this 
sense,  which  indeed  of  itself  it  cries  out  for ;  it  is,  as 
Pavison,  again,  finely  says,  "  impatient  for  the 
larger  scope."  How  often,  through  the  ages,  how 
often,  even,  by  the  Hebrew  prophets  themselves,  has 
some  immediate  visible  interposition  been  looked  for ! 
"  I  beheld,"  they  make  God  say,  "  and  there  was  no 
man,  and  I  wondered  that  there  was  no  intercessor, 
therefore  mine  own  arm  brought  salvation  unto  me ; 
the  day  of  vengeance  is  in  mine  heart,  the  year  of 
my  redeemed  is  come."  O  long  delaying  arm  of 
might,  will  the  Eternal  never  put  thee  forth,  to  smite 
these  who  go  on  as  if  righteousness  mattered  nothing  ? 
There  is  no  need ;  they  are  smitten.  Down  they 
come,  one  after  another;  Assyria  falls,  Babylon, 
Greece,  Rome;  they  all  fall  for  want  of  conduct, 
righteousness.  "  The  heathen  make  much  ado,  and 
the  kingdoms  are  moved ;  but  God  hath  showed  his 
voice,  and  the  earth  doth  melt  away."  Nay,  but 


310  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

Judea  itself,  the  Holy  Land,  the  land  of  God's  Israel, 
falls  too,  and  falls  for  want  of  righteousness. 

Yes,  Israel's  visible  Jerusalem  is  in  ruins;  and 
how  then  shall  men  u  call  Jerusalem  the  throne  of 
the  Eternal,  and  all  the  nations  shall  be  gathered 
unto  it  ?  "  But  the  true  Israel  was  Israel  the  bringer- 
in  and  defender  of  the  idea  of  conduct,  Israel  the 
lifter-up  to  the  nations  of  the  banner  of  righteous- 
ness; the  true  Jerusalem  was  the  city  of  this  ideal 
Israel.  And  this  ideal  Israel  could  not  and  cannot 
perish,  so  long  as  his  idea,  righteousness  and  its  neces- 
sity, does  not  perish,  but  prevails.  Now,  that  it 
does  prevail,  the  whole  course  of  the  world  proves, 
and  the  fall  of  the  actual  Israel  is  of  itself  witness. 
Thus,  therefore,  the  ideal  Israel  forever  lives  and 
prospers ;  and  its  city  is  the  city  whereto  all  nations 
and  languages,  after  endless  trials  of  everything  else 
oxcopt  conduct,  after  incessantly  attempting  to  do 
without  righteousness  and  failing,  are  slowly  but 
smvly  gathered. 

To  this  Israel  are  the  promises,  and  to  this  Israel 
they  are  fulfilled.  "  The  nation  and  kingdom  that 
will  not  serve  thee  shall  perish,  yea,  those  nation- 
shall  be  utterly  wasted."  It  is  so;  since  all  histury 
is  an  accumulation  of  experiences  that  what  men 
and  nations  fall  by  is  want  of  conduct.  To  call  it 
by  this  plain  name  is  often  not  amiss,  for  the  thing 
is  never  more  great  than  when  it  is  looked  at  in  it- 
simplicity  and  reality.  Yet  tlic  true  name  to  touch 
the  soul  is  tho  name  Israel  gave:  Righteousness. 
And  to  Israel,  as  the  representative  of  this  ini]>orMi 


TRUE  GREATNESS  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT.      341 

able  and  saving  idea  of  righteousness,  all  the  prom' 
isc-s  come  true,  and  the  language  of  none  of  them  is 
pitched  too  high.  The  Eternal,  Israel  says  truly,  is 
on  my  side.  "  Fear  not,  thou  worm  Jacob,  and  thou 
handful  Israel;  I  will  help  thee,  saith  the  Eternal. 
Behold,  I  have  graven  thee  upon  the  palms  of  my 
hands,  thy  walls  are  continually  before  me.  The 
Eternal  hath  chosen  Zion;  O  pray  for  the  peace  of 
Jerusalem !  they  shall  prosper  that  love  thee.  Men 
shall  call  Jerusalem  the  throne  of  the  Eternal,  and  all 
the  nations  shall  be  gathered  unto  it.  And  he  will 
destroy  in  this  mountain  the  face  of  the  covering 
east  over  all  people,  and  the  veil  that  is  spread  over 
all  nations ;  he  will  swallow  up  death  in  victory.  And 
it  shall  be  said  in  that  day :  Lo,  this  is  our  God ;  this 
is  the  Eternal,  we  have  waited  for  him,  we  will  be 
glad  and  rejoice  in  his  salvation." 


5. 


And  if  Assyria  and  Babylon  seem  too  remote,  let 
us  look  nearer  home  for  testimonies  to  the  inexhausti- 
ble grandeur  and  significance  of  the  Old  Testament 
revelation,  according  to  that  construction  which  we 
here  put  upon  it.  Every  educated  man  loves  Greece, 
owes  gratitude  to  Greece.  Greece  was  the  lifter-up 
to  the  nations  of  the  banner  of  art  and  science,  as 
Israel  was  the  lifter-up  of  the  banner  of  righteous- 
ness. Xow,  the  world  cannot  do  without  art  and 
science.  And  the  lifter-up  of  the  banner  of  art  and 
science  was  naturally  much  occupied  with  them,  and 


LliEKATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

conduct  was  a  homely  plain  matter ;  not  enough  heed, 
therefore,  was  given  by  him  to  conduct.  But  con- 
duct, plain  matter  as  it  is,  is  six  eighths  of  life,  while 
art  and  science  are  only  two  eighths.  And  this  bril- 
liant Greece  perished  for  lack  of  attention  enough  to 
conduct;  for  want  of  conduct,  steadiness,  character. 
And  there  is  this  difference  between  Greece  and 
Judaea :  both  were  custodians  of  a  revelation  and  both 
perished ;  but  Greece  perished  of  over-fidelity  to  her 
revelation,  and  Judaea  perished  of  unde /--fidelity  to 
hers.  Xay,  and  the  victorious  revelation  now,  even 
now, — in  this  age  when  more  of  beauty  and  more  of 
knowledge  are  so  much  needed,  and  knowledge,  at  any 
rate,  is  so  highly  esteemed, — the  revelation  which 
rules  the  world  even  now,  is  not  Greece's  revelation, 
but  Judaea's ;  not  the  pre-eminence  of  art  and  science, 
but  the  pre-eminence  of  righteousness. 

It  reminds  one  of  what  is  recorded  of  Abraham, 
before  the  true  inheritor  of  the  promises,  the  humble 
and  homely  Isaac,  was  born.  Abraham  looked  upon 
the  audacious  and  brilliant  young  Ishmael,  and  said 
appealingly  to  God :  "  O  that  Ishmael  might  live  be- 
fore thee!  "  Hut  it  cannot  be;  the  promises  are  to 
conduct,  conduct  only.  And  so,  again.  we  behold, 
long  after  Greece  has  perished,  a  brilliant  successor 
of  Greece,  the  Renascence,  present  herself  with  high 
hopes.  The  preachers  of  righteousness,  blunderers 
as  they  might  be.  have  had  it  all  their  own  way,  art 
and  science  have  been  forgotten,  men's  minds  have 
been  enslaved,  their  bodies  macerated.  But  the 
,  oppressive  dream  is  now  over:  "Let  us  re- 


TRUE  GREATNESS  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT.      343 

turn  to  Mature !  "  And  all  the  world  salutes  with 
pride  and  joy  the  Renascence,  and  prays  to  Heaven : 
'"  O  that  Ishmael  might  live  before  thee !  "  Surely 
the  future  belongs  to  this  brilliant  new-comer,  with 
his  animating  maxim :  "  Let  us  return  to  Nature." 
Ah  what  pitfalls  are  in  that  word  Nature!  Let  us 
return  to  art  and  science,  which  are  a  part  of  Nature ; 
yes.  Let  us  return  to  a  proper  conception  of  right- 
eousness, to  a  true  use  of  the  method  and  secret  of 
Jesus,  which  have  been  all  denaturalized ;  yes.  But, 
"  Let  us  return  to  Nature;  " — do  you  mean  that  we 
are  to  give  full  swing  to  our  inclinations,  to  throw  the 
reins  on  the  neck  of  our  senses,  of  those  sirens  whom 
Paul  the  Israelite  called  "  the  deceitful  lusts,"  and 
of  following  whom  he  said :  "  Let  no  man  beguile  you 
with  vain  words,  for  because  of  these  things  cometh 
the  wrath  of  God  upon  the  children  of  disobedience  ?  " 
Do  you  mean  that  conduct  is  not  three  fourths  of  life, 
and  that  the  secret  of  Jesus  has  no  use  ?  And  the 
Renascence  did  mean  this,  or  half  meant  this ;  so 
disgusted  was  it  with  the  cowled  and  tonsured  Middle 
Age.  And  it  died  of  it,  this  brilliant  Ishmael  died 
of  it !  it  died  of  provoking  a  collision  with  the  homely 
Isaac,  righteousness.  On  the  Continent  came  the 
Catholic  reaction ;  in  England,  as  we  have  said  else- 
where, "  the  great  middle  class,  the  kernel  of  the  na- 
tion, entered  the  prison  of  Puritanism,  and  had  the 
key  turned  upon  its  spirit  there  for  two  hundred 
years."  After  too  much  glorification  of  art,  science, 
ami  culture,  too  little;  after  Rabelais,  George  Fox. 
France,  again,  how  often  and  how  impetuously  for 


LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

France  has  the  prayer  gone  up  to  Heaven :  "  O  that 
Ishmael  might  live  before  thee !  "  It  is  not  enough 
perceived  what  it  is  which  gives  France  her  attrac- 
tiveness for  everybody,  her  success,  her  repeated  dis- 
asters. France  is  I'homme  sensucl  moycn,  the  aver- 
age sensual  man  ;  Paris  is  the  city  of  I'Jiommc  &r/i.swZ 
moyen.  This  has  an  attraction  for  all  of  us.  We  all 
have  in  us  this  liommc  scnxurl.  the  man  of  the 
"  wishes  of  the  flesh  and  of  the  current  thoughts;  " 
but  we  develop  him  under  checks  and  doubts,  and  un- 
systematically  and  often  grossly.  France,  on  the 
other  hand,  develops  him  confidently  and  harmo- 
niously. She  makes  the  most  of  him,  because  she 
knows  what  she  is  about  and  keeps  in  a  mean,  as  her 
climate  is  in  a  mean,  and  her  situation.  She  does 
not  develop  him  with  madness,  into  a  monstrosity,  as 
the  Italy  of  the  Renascence  did,  she  develops  him 
equably  and  systematically;  and  hence  she  does  not 
shock  people  with  him  but  attracts  them,  she  names 
herself  the  France  of  tact  and  measure,  good  s< 
1<  uic.  In  a  way  this  is  true.  As  she  develops  the 
-es,  the  apparent  self,  all  round,  in  good  faith, 
without  misgivings,  without  violence;  she  has  much 
reasonableness  and  clearness  in  all  her  notions  and 
arrangements;  a  sort  of  balance  even  in  conduct:  as 
much  art  and  science,  and  it  is  not  a  little,  as  .L 
with  the  ideal  of  Vliomme  sensucl  m<>ij<  n.  And  from 
her  ideal  of  the  average  sensual  man  France  has  de- 
duced her  famous  gospel  of  the  Rights  of  Man,  which 
-he  preaches  with  such  an  infinite  self-admiration. 
France  takes  "  the  wishes  of  the  flesh  and  of  the  cur- 


TRUE  GREATNESS  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT.      345 

rent  thoughts,"  for  a  man's  rights;  and  human  hap- 
piness, and  the  perfection  of  society,  she  places  in 
everybody's  being  enabled  to  gratify  these  wishes,  to 
get  these  rights,  as  equally  as  possible  and  as  much  as 
possible.  In  Italy,  as  in  ancient  Greece,  the  satisfy- 
ing development  of  this  ideal  of  the  average  sensual 
man  is  broken  by  the  imperious  ideal  of  art  and 
science  disparaging  it ;  in  the  Teutonic  nations,  by  the 
ideal  of  morality  disparaging  it.  Still,  whenever, 
as  often  happens,  the  pursuers  of  these  higher  ideals 
are  a  little  weary  of  them  or  unsuccessful  with  them, 
they  turn  with  a  sort  of  envy  and  admiration  to  the 
ideal  set  up  by  France, — so  positive,  intelligible,  and 
up  to  a  certain  point  satisfying.  They  are  inclined 
to  try  it  instead  of  their  own,  though  they  can  never 
bring  themselves  to  try  it  thoroughly,  and  therefore 
well.  But  this  explains  the  great  attraction  France 
exorcises  upon  the  world.  All  of  us  feel,  at  some 
time  or  other  in  our  lives,  a  hankering  after  the 
French  ideal,  a  disposition  to  try  it.  More  particu- 
larly is  this  true  of  the  Latin  nations ;  and  therefore 
everywhere,  among  these  nations,  you  see  the  old  in- 
digenous type  of  city  disappearing,  and  the  type  of 
modern  Paris,  the  city  of  I'homme  sensuel  moyen, 
replacing  it.  La  Bolu>me,  the  ideal,  free,  pleasura- 
ble life  of  Paris,  is  a  kind  of  Paradise  of  Ishmaels. 
And  all  this  assent  from  every  quarter,  and  the  clear- 
ness and  apparent  reasonableness  of  their  ideal  be- 
sides, fills  the  French  with  a  kind  of  ecstatic  faith 
in  it,  a  zeal  almost  fanatical  for  propagating  what 
they  call  French  civilization  everywhere,  for  estab- 


34:6  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

lishing  its  predominance,  and  their  own  predomi- 
nance along  with  it,  as  of  the  people  entrusted  with 
an  oracle  so  showy  and  taking.  "  O  that  Ishmael 
might  live  before  thee!"  Since  everybody  has 
something  which  conspires  with  this  Ishmael,  his  suc- 
cess, again  and  again,  seems  to  be  certain ;  again  and 
again  he  seems  drawing  near  to  a  world-wide  success, 
nay,  to  have  succeeded ; — but  always,  at  this  point, 
disaster  overtakes  him,  he  signally  breaks  down.  At 
this  crowning  moment,  when  all  seems  triumphant 
with  him,  comes  what  the  Bible  calls  a  crisis,  or  judg- 
ment. "Now  is  the  judgment  of  this  world!  now 
shall  the  prince  of  this  world  be  cast  out !  "  Cast 
out  he  is,  and  always  must  be,  because  his  ideal, 
which  is  also  that  of  France,  however  she  may  have 
noble  spirits  who  contend  against  it  and  seek  a  bet- 
ter, is  after  all  a  false  one.  Plausible  and  attractive 
as  it  may  be,  the  constitution  of  things  turns  out  to 
be  somehow  or  other  against  it.  And  why?  Be- 
rn use  the  free  development  of  our  senses  all  round, 
of  our  apparent  self,  has  to  undergo  a  profound  modi- 
fication from  the  law  of  our  higher  real  self,  the  law 
of  righteousness ;  because  he,  whose  ideal  is  the  de- 
velopment of  the  senses  all  round,  serves  the  smsrs,  is 
a  servant.  But:  "The  servant  abideth  not  in  the 
house  forever;  the  son  abideth  forever." 

Is  it  possible  to  imagine  grander  testimony  to  the 
truth  of  the  revelation  committed  to  Israel  ?  What 
miracle  of  making  an  iron  axe-head  float  on  water, 
what  successful  prediction  that  a  thing  should  hap- 


TRUE  GREATNESS  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT.      347 

pen  just  so  many  years  and  months  and  days  hence, 
could  be  really  half  so  impressive  ? 


6. 


So  that  the  whole  history  of  the  world  to  this  day  is 
in  truth  one  continual  establishing  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment revelation :  "  O  ye  that  love  the  Eternal,  see 
that  ye  hate  the  thing  that  is  evil !  to  him  that  order- 
eth  his  conversation  right,  shall  be  shown  the  salva- 
tion of  God."  And  whether  we  consider  this  revela- 
tion in  respect  to  human  affairs  at  large,  or  in  respect 
to  individual  happiness,  in  either  case  its  importance 
is  so  immense,  that  the  people  to  whom  it  was  given, 
and  whose  record  is  in  the  Bible,  deserve  fully  to  be 
singled  out  as  the  Bible  singles  them.  Behold,  dark- 
ness doth  cover  the  earth,  and  gross  darkness  the  na- 
tions :  but  the  Eternal  shall  arise  upon  thee,  and  his 
glory  shall  be  seen  upon  thee !  "  For,  while  other 
nations  had  the  misleading  idea  that  this  or  that, 
other  than  righteousness,  is  saving,  and  it  is  not; 
that  this  or  that,  other  than  conduct,  brings  happi- 
ness, and  it  does  not ;  Israel  had  the  true  idea  that 
righteo'usncss  is  saving,  that  to  conduct  belongs  hap- 
piness. 

Xor  let  it  be  said  that  other  nations,  too,  had  at 
least  something  of  this  idea.  They  had,  but  they 
were  not  possessed  with  it ;  and  to  feel  it  enough  to 
make  the  world  feel  it,  it  was  necessary  to  be  pos- 
sessed with  it.  It  is  not  sufficient  to  have  been  vis- 
ited by  such  an  idea  at  times,  to  have  had  it  forced 


348  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

occasionally  on  one's  mind  by  the  teaching  of  experi- 
ence. No ;  "  he  that  hath  the  bride  is  the  bride- 
groom ;  "  the  idea  belongs  to  him  who  has  most  loved 
it.  Common  prudence  can  say :  Honesty  is  the  best 
policy ;  morality  can  say :  To  conduct  belongs  happi- 
ness. But  Israel  and  the  Bible  are  filled  with  re- 
ligious joy,  and  rise  higher  and  say:  "Righteous- 
ness is  salvation  !  "  — and  this  is  what  is  inspiring. 
u  I  have  stuck  unto  thy  testimonies.  Eternal,  what 
love  have  I  unto  thy  law !  all  the  day  long  is  my  study 
in  it.  Thy  testimonies  have  I  claimed  as  mine  heri- 
tage forever,  and  why  ?  they  are  the  very  joy  of  nuj 
heart."  This  is  why  the  testimonies  of  righteous- 
ness are  Israel's  heritage  forever,  because  they  were 
u  the  very  joy  of  his  heart."  Herein  Israel  stood 
alone,  the  friend  and  elect  of  the  Eternal.  "  He 
showeth  his  word  unto  Jacob,  his  statutes  and  ordi- 
nances unto  Israel.  He  hath  not  dealt  so  with  any 
nation,  neither  have  the  heathen  knowledge  of  his 
laws." 

Poor  Israel!  poor  ancient  people!  It  was  re- 
vealed to  thee  that  righteousness  is  salvation;  the 
question,  what  righteousness  is,  was  thy  stumbling- 
stone.  Seer  of  the  vision  of  peace,  that  yet  couldst 
not  see  the  things  which  belong  unto  thy  peace  I  with 
that  blindness  thy  solitary  pre-eminence  ended,  and 
llie  new  Israel,  made  up  out  of  all  nations  and  lan- 
guages, took  thy  room.  But,  thy  visitation  complete, 
thy  temple  in  ruins,  thy  reign  over,  thine  office  done, 
thy  child ren  dispersed,  thy  teeth  drawn,  thy  shekels 
•  •I'  gold  and  silver  plundered,  did  there  yet  stay  with 


TRUE  GREATNESS  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT.      349 

thee  any  remembrance  of  thy  primitive  intuition, 
simple  and  sublime,  of  the  Eternal  that  loveth  right- 
eousness? Perhaps  not;  the  Talmudists  were  fully 
as  well  able  to  efface  it  as  the  Fathers.  But  if  there 
did,  what  punishment  can  have  been  to  thee  like  the 
punishment  of  watching  the  performances  of  the 
A  ryan  genius  upon  the  foundation  which  thou  hadst 
given  it? — to  behold  this  terrible  and  triumphant 
philosopher,  with  his  monotheistic  idea  and  his  meta- 
physical Trinity,  "  neither  confounding  the  Person;', 
nor  dividing  the  Substance?"  Like  the  torture  to 
a  poet  to  hear  people  laying  down  the  law  about, 
poetry  who  have  not  the  sense  what  poetry  is, — a 
sense  with  which  he  was  born !  like  the  affliction  to 
a  man  of  science  to  hear  people  talk  of  things  as 
proved,  who  do  not  even  know  what  constitutes  a  fact ! 
From  the  Council  of  Nicaea  down  to  Convocation, 
and  the  Bishops  of  Winchester  and  Gloucester  "  do- 
ing something  "  for  the  Godhead  of  the  Eternal  Son, 
what  must  thou  have  had  to  suffer ! 


CHAPTER  XII. 

THE  TEUE  GREATNESS  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

No;  the  mystery  hidden  from  ages  and  genera- 
tions, which  none  of  the  rulers  of  this  world  knew, 
the  mystery  revealed  finally  by  Christ  and  rejected 
by  the  Jews,  was  not  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  nor 
anything  speculative;  it  was  the  method  and  the  se- 
cret of  Jesus.  Jesus  did  not  change  the  object  for 
men, — righteousness ;  he  made  clear  what  it  was,  and 
that  it  was  this:  his  method  and  his  secret. 

This  was  the  mystery,  and  the  Apostles  had  still 
the  consciousness  that  it  was.  To  "  learn  Christ," 
to  "  be  taught  the  truth  as  it  is  in  Jesus,"  was  not, 
with  them,  to  acquire  certain  tenets  about  One  God 
in  Trinity  and  Trinity  in  Unity;  it  was,  to  "be 
renewed  in  the  spirit  of  your  mind,  and  to  put  on 
the  new  man  which  after  God  is  created  in  righteous- 
ness and  true  holiness."  And  this  exactly  amounts 
to  the  method  and  secret  of  Jesus. 

For  Catholic  and  for  Protestant  theology  alike,  this 
consciousness,  which  the  Apostles  had  still  preserved, 
was  lost.  For  Catholic  and  Protestant  theology  alike, 
the  truth  as  it  is  in  Jesus,  the  mystery  revealed  in 
Christ,  meant  something  totally  different  from  his 
method  and  secret.  But  they  recognized,  and  in- 

350 


TRUE  GREATNESS  OF  CHRISTIANITY.         351 

deed  the  thing  was  so  plain  that  they  could  not  well 
miss  it,  they  recognized  that  on  all  Christians  the 
method  and  secret  of  Jesus  were  enjoined.  So  to 
this  extent  the  method  and  secret  of  Jesus  were 
preached  and  had  their  effect.  To  this  extent  true 
Christianity  has  been  known,  and  to  the  extent  be- 
fore stated  it  has  been  neglected.  Now,  as  we  say 
that  the  truth  and  grandeur  of  the  Old  Testament 
most  comes  out  experimentally, — that  is,  by  the  whole 
course  of  the  world  establishing  it,  and  confuting 
what  is  opposed  to  it, — so  it  is  with  Christianity.  Its 
grandeur  and  truth  are  far  most  brought  out  experi- 
mentally; and  the  thing  is,  to  make  people  see  this. 

But  there  is  this  difference  between  the  religion  of 
the  Old  Testament  and  Christianity.  Of  the  religion 
of  the  Old  Testament  we  can  pretty  well  see  to  the 
end,  we  can  trace  fully  enough  the  experimental  proof 
of  it  in  history.  But  of  Christianity  the  future  is 
as  yet  almost  unknown.  For  that  the  world  cannot 
get  on  without  righteousness  we  have  the  clear  ex- 
perience, and  a  grand  and  admirable  experience  it  is. 
But  what  the  world  will  become  by  the  thorough  use 
of  that  which  is  really  righteousness,  the  method  and 
the  secret  and  the  sweet  reasonableness  of  Jesus,  we 
have  as  yet  hardly  any  experience  at  all.  Therefore 
we,  who  in  this  essay  limit  ourselves  to  experience, 
shall  speak  here  of  Christianity  and  its  greatness  very 
soberly.  Yet  Christianity  is  really  all  the  grander 
for  that  very  reason  which  makes  us  speak  about  it 
in  this  sober  manner, — that  it  has  such  an  immense 
development  still  before  it,  and  that  it  has  as  yet  so 


352  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

little  shown  all  it  contains,  all  it  can  do.  Indeed, 
that  Christianity  has  already  done  so  much  as  it  has, 
is  a  witness  to  it ;  and  that  it  has  not  yet  done  more, 
is  a  witness  to  it  too.  Let  us  observe  how  this  is  so. 


2. 


Few  things  are  more  melancholy  than  to  observe 
Christian  apologists  taunting  the  Jews  with  the  fail- 
ure of  Hebraism  to  fulfil  the  splendid  promises  of 
prophecy,  and  Jewish  apologists  taunting  Christen- 
dom with  the  failure  of  Christianity  to  fulfil  these. 
.Yeither  has  yet  fulfilled  them,  or  could  yet  have  ful- 
filled them.  Certainly  the  restoration  by  Cyrus,  the 
Second  Temple,  the  Maccabean  victories,  are  hardly 
more  than  the  shadows  of  a  fulfilment  of  the  magnifi- 
cent words:  "The  sons  of  them  that  afflicted  thee 
shall  come  bending  unto  thee,  and  all  they  that  de- 
spised thee  shall  bow  themselves  down  at  the  soles  of 
thy  feet;  thy  gates  shall  not  be  shut  day  nor  night, 
that  men  may  bring  unto  thee  the  treasures  of  the 
Gentiles  and  that  their  kings  may  be  brought."  The 
Christianization  of  all  the  leading  nations  of  the 
world  is,  it  is  said,  a  much  better  fulfilment  of  that 
promise.  Be  it  so.  Yet  does  Christendom,  let  us 
ask,  offer  more  than  a  shadow  of  the  fulfilment  of 
this:  "  Violence  shall  no  more  be  heard  in  thy  land  ; 
the  vile  person  shall  no  more  be  called  liberal,  nor  the 
churl  bountiful;  thy  people  shall  be  all  righteous: 
tliry  shall  all  know  me,  from  the  least  to  the  greatest : 
T  will  put  my  law  in  their  inward  parts,  and  write 


TRUE  GREATNESS  OF  CHRISTIANITY.         353 

it  in  their  hearts ;  the  Eternal  shall  be  thine  everlast- 
ing light  and  the  days  of  thy  mourning  shall  be 
ended  ?  "  Manifestly  it  does  not ;  yet  the  two  prom- 
ises hang  together,  one  of  them  is  not  truly  fulfilled 
unless  the  other  is. 

The  promises  were  made  to  righteousness,  with  all 
which  the  idea  of  righteousness  involves;  and  it  in- 
volves Christianity.  They  were  made  on  the  imme- 
diate prospect  of  a  small  triumph  for  righteousness, 
the  restoration  of  the  Jews  after  the  captivity  in 
Babylon ;  but  they  are  not  satisfied  by  that  triumph. 
The  prevalence  of  the  profession  of  Christianity  is 
a  larger  triumph  ;  yet  in  itself  it  hardly  satisfies  them 
any  better.  What  satisfies  them  is  the  prevailing  of 
that  which  righteousness  really  is,  and  nothing  else 
satisfies  them.  Now  Christianity  is  that  which  right- 
eousness really  is.  Therefore,  if  something  called 
Christianity  prevails,  and  yet  the  promises  are  not 
satisfied,  the  inference  is  that  this  something  is  not 
that  which  righteousness  really  is,  and  therefore  not 
really  Christianity.  And  as  the  course  of  the  world  is 
perpetually  establishing  the  pre-eminence  of  right- 
eousness, and  confounding  whatever  denies  this  pre- 
eminence, so,  too,  the  course  of  the  world  is  forever  es- 
tablishing what  righteousness  really  is, — that  is  to 
say,  true  Christianity, — and  confounding  whatever 
pretends  to  be  true  Christianity  and  is  not 

Now,  just  as  the  constitution  of  things  turned  out 

to  be  against  the  great  unrighteous  kingdoms  of  the 

heathen  world,  and  against  all  the  brilliant  Ishmaels 

we  have  seen  since,  so  the  constitution  of  things  turns 

23 


354  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

out  to  be  against  all  false  presentations  of  Christian- 
ity, such  as  the  theology  of  the  Fathers  or  Protestant 
theology.  They  do  not  work  successfully,  they  do 
not  reach  the  aim,  they  do  not  bring  the  world  to  the 
fruition  of  the  promises  made  to  righteousness.  And 
the  reason  is,  because  they  substitute  for  what  is 
really  righteousness  something  else.  Catholic  dogma 
or  Lutheran  justification  by  faith  they  substitute  for 
the  method  and  secret  of  Jesus. 

Nevertheless,  as  all  Christian  Churches  do  recom- 
mend the  method  and  the  secret  of  Jesus,  though  not 
in  the  right  way  or  in  the  right  eminency,  still  the 
world  is  made  acquainted  with  what  righteousness 
really  is,  and  the  doctrine  produces  some  effect,  al- 
though the  full  effect  is  much  thwarted  and  deadened 
by  the  false  way  in  which  the  doctrine  is  presented. 
Still  the  effect  produced  is  great ;  for  instance,  the 
sum  of  individual  happiness  that  has  been  caused  by 
Christianity  is,  any  one  can  see,  enormous.  But  let 
us  take  the  effect  of  Christianity  on  the  world. 
And  if  we  look  at  the  thing  closely  \ve 
shall  find  that  its  effect  has  been  this:  Chris- 
tianity has  brought  the  world,  or  at  any  rate  all  the 
leading  part  of  the  world,  "to  regard  righteous! 
as  only  the  Jews  regarded  it  before  the  coming  of 
Christ."  The  world  lias  accepted,  so  far  as  profes- 
sion goes,  that  original  revelation  made  to  Israel;  the 
pre-eminence  of  righteousness.  Tin-  infinite  truth 
and  attractiveness  of  the  method  and  secret  and  char 
nctor  of  Jesus,  however  falsely  surrounded,  have  pre- 
vailed with  the  world  so  far  a<  this.  And  this  is  an 


TRUE  GREATNESS  OF  CHRISTIANITY.         355 

immense  gain,  and  a  signal  witness  to  Christianity. 
The  world  does  homage  to  the  pre-eminence  of  right- 
eousness ;  and  here  we  have  one  of  those  fulfilments 
of  prophecy  which  are  so  true  and  so  glorious.  "  Glo- 
rious things  are  spoken  of  thee,  O  City  of  God!  I 
will  make  mention  of  Rahab  and  Babylon  as  of  them 
that  know  me !  behold,  the  Philistines  also,  and  Tyre, 
with  the  Ethiopians, — these  were  born  there!  And 
of  Zion  it  shall  be  reported :  This  and  that  man  was 
born  in  her! — and  the  Most  High  shall  stablish  her. 
The  Eternal  shall  count,  when  he  writeth  up  the  peo- 
ple :  This  man  was  born  there !  "  That  prophecy  is 
at  this  present  day  abundantly  fulfilled.  The  world's 
chief  nations  have  now  all  come,  we  see,  to  reckon 
and  profess  themselves  adherents  of  the  religion  of 
Zion,  the  city  of  righteousness. 

But  there  remains  the  question :  what  righteous- 
ness really  is.  The  method  and  secret  and  sweet  rea- 
sonableness of  Jesus.  But  the  world  does  n?t  see 
this ;  for  it  puts,  as  righteousness,  something  else  first 
and  this  second.  So  that  here,  too,  as  to  seeing  what 
righteousness  really  is,  the  world  now  is  just  in  the 
same  position  in  which  the  Jews,  when  Christ  came, 
were.  It  is  often  said  :  If  Christ  came  now,  his  re- 
ligion would  be  rejected.  And  this  is  only  another 
way  of  saying  that  the  world  now,  as  the  Jewish  peo- 
ple formerly,  has  something  which  thwarts  and  con- 
fuses its  perception  of  what  righteousness  really  is. 
It  is  so ;  and  the  thwarting  cause  is  the  same  now  as 
then : — the  dogmatic  system  current,  the  so-called 
orthodox  theology.  This  prevents  now,  as  it  did 


356  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA 

then,  that  which  righteousness  really  is,  the  method 
and  secret  of  Jesus,  from  being  rightly  received,  from 
operating  fully,  and  from  accomplishing  its  due  ef- 
fect. 

So  true  is  this,  that  we  have  only  to  look  at  our 
own  community  to  see  the  almost  precise  parallel,  so 
far  as  religion  is  concerned,  to  the  state  of  things  pre- 
sented in  Judaea  when  Christ  came.  The  multi- 
tudes are  the  same  everywhere.  The  chief  priests 
and  elders  of  the  people  and  the  scribes  are  our 
bishops  and  dogmatists,  with  their  pseudo-science  of 
learned  theology  blinding  their  eyes,  and  always — 
whenever  simple  souls  are  disposed  to  think  that  the 
method  and  secret  of  Jesus  is  true  religion,  and  that 
the  great  Personal  First  Cause  and  the  Godhead  of 
the  Eternal  Son  have  nothing  to  do  with  it — eager 
to  cry  out :  "  This  people  that  knoweth  not  the  law 
are  cursed !  "  The  Pharisees,  with  their  genuine  con- 
cern for  religion,  but  total  want  of  perception  of  what 
religion  really  is,  and  by  their  temper,  attitude,  and 
aims  doing  their  best  to  make  religion  impossible,  are 
the  Protestant  Dissenters.  The  Sadducees  are  our 
friends  the  philosophical  Liberals,  who  believe  neither 
in  angel  nor  spirit  but  in  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer. 
Even  the  Roman  governor  lias  his  close  parallel  in 
our  celebrated  aristocracy,  Avitli  its  superficial  good 
sense  and  good-nature,  its  thorough  inaptitude  for 
ideas,  its  profound  helplessness  in  jnv<.'iu'e  of  all 
great  spiritual  movements.  And  the  result  is,  that 
the  splendid  promises  to  righteousness  made  by  the 
Hebrew  prophets,  claimed  by  the  Jews  as  the  pr«>|>- 


TRUE  GREATNESS  OF  CHRISTIANITY.         357 

erty  of  Judaism,  claimed  by  us  as  the  property  of 
Christianity,  are  almost  as  ludicrously  inapplicable 
to  our  religious  state  now,  as  to  theirs  then. 

And  this,  we  say,  is  again  a  signal  witness  to  Chris- 
tianity. Christ  came  to  reveal  what  righteousness, 
to  which  the  promises  belong,  really  is ;  and  so  long 
as  this,  though  shown  by  Christ,  is  not  seen  by  us,  we 
may  call  ourselves  Christendom  as  much  as  we  please, 
the  true  character  of  a  Christendom  will  be  wanting 
to  us,  because  the  great  promises  of  prophecy  will  be 
still  without  their  fulfilment.  Nothing  will  do,  ex- 
cept righteousness ;  and  no  other  conception  of  right- 
eousness will  do,  except  Christ's  conception  of  it :  his 
method  and  his  secret. 


3. 


Yes,  the  grandeur  of  Christianity  and  the  impos- 
ing and  impressive  attestation  of  it,  if  we  could  but 
worthily  bring  the  thing  out,  is  here :  in  that  im- 
mense experimental  proof  of  the  necessity  of  it,  which 
the  whole  course  of  the  world  has  steadily  accumu- 
lated, and  indicates  to  us  as  still  continuing  and  ex- 
tending. Men  will  not  admit  assumptions,  the  pop- 
ular legend  they  call  a  fairy-tale,  the  metaphysical 
demonstrations  do  not  demonstrate,  nothing  but  ex- 
perimental proof  will  go  down ;  and  here  is  an  ex- 
perimental proof  which  never  fails,  and  which  at  the 
same  time  is  infinitely  grander,  by  the  vastness  of  its 
scale,  the  scope  of  its  duration,  the  gravity  of  its  re- 
sults, than  the  machinery  of  the  popular  fairy-tale. 


358  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

Walking  on  the  water,  multiplying  loaves,  raising 
corpses,  a  heavenly  judge  appearing  with  trumpets 
in  the  clouds  while  we  are  yet  alive, — what  is  this 
compared  to  the  real  experience  offered  as  witness  to 
us  by  Christianity  ?  It  is  like  the  difference  between 
the  grandeur  of  an  extravaganza  and  the  grandeur  of 
the  sea  or  the  sky, — immense  objects  which  dwarf  us, 
but  where  we  are  in  contact  with  reality,  and  a  reality 
of  which  we  can  slowly  trace  the  laws. 

The  more  we  trace  the  real  law  of  Christianity's  ac- 
tion, the  grander  it  will  seem.  Certainly  in  the  Gos- 
pels there  is  plenty  of  matter  to  call  out  our  feelings, 
but  perhaps  this  has  been  somewhat  over-used  and 
mis-used,  applied,  as  it  has  been,  chiefly  so  as  to  be 
subservient  to  what  we  call  the  fairy-tale  of  the  three 
Lord  Shaftesburys, — a  story  which  we  do  not  deny 
to  have,  like  other  products  of  the  popular  imagina- 
tion, its  pathos  and  power,  but  which  we  have  seen 
to  be  no  solid  foundation  to  rest  our  faith  in  the  Bible 
on.  And  perhaps,  too,  we  do  wrong,  and  inevitably 
fall  into  what  is  artificial  and  unnatural,  in  laboring 
so  much  to  produce  in  ourselves,  as  the  one  impulse 
determining  us  to  use  the  method  and  seeret  of  Jesus, 
that,  conscious  ardent  sensation  of  personal  love  to 
him  which  we  find  the  first  generation  of  Chris- 
tians feeling  and  professing,  and  which  was 
the  natural  motor  for  those  who  were  with  him 
or  near  him,  and,  so  to  speak,  touched  him; 
:md  in  making  this  our  first  object.  At  any  rate, 
niUemploved  as  this  motor  has  often  been,  it  might 
lie  well  to  forego  or  at  least  suspend  its  use  for  our- 


TRUE  GREATNESS  OF  CHRISTIANITY.         359 

selves  and  others  for  a  time,  and  to  fix  our  minds 
exclusively  on  the  recommendation  given  to  the 
method  and  secret  of  Jesus  by  their  being  true,  and 
by  the  whole  course  of  things  proving  this. 

Now,  just  as  the  best  recommendation  of  the  oracle 
committed  to  Israel,  u  Righteousness  is  salvation,"  is 
found  in  our  more  and  more  discovering,  in  our  own 
history  and  in  the  whole  history  of  the  world,  that  it 
is  so,  so  we  shall  find  it  to  be  with  the  method  and 
secret  of  Jesus.  That  this  is  the  righteousness  which  is 
salvation,  that  the  method  and  secret  of  Jesus,  that 
is  to  say,  conscience  and  self-renouncement,  are  right- 
eousness, bring  about  the  kingdom  of  God  or  the  reign 
of  righteousness, — this,  which  is  the  Christian  revela- 
tion and  what  Jesus  came  to  establish,  is  best  im- 
pressed, for  the  present  at  any  rate,  by  experiencing 
and  showing  again  and  again,  in  ourselves  and  in  the 
course  of  the  world,  that  it  is  so ;  that  this  is  the 
righteousness  which  is  saving,  and  that  there  is  none 
other.  Let  us  but  well  observe  what  conies,  in  our- 
selves or  the  world,  of  trying  any  other,  of  not  being 
convinced  that  this  is  righteousness,  and  this  only; 
and  we  shall  find  ourselves  more  and  more,  as  by  irre- 
sistible viewless  hands,  caught  and  drawn  towards  the 
Christian  revelation,  and  made  to  desire  more  and 
more  to  serve  it.  Xo  proof  can  be  so  solid  as  this 
experimental  proof ;  and  none,  again,  can  be  so  grand, 
so  fitted  to  fill  us  with  awe,  admiration,  and  grati- 
tude ;  so  that  feeling  and  emotion  will  now  well  come 
in  after  it,  though  not  before  it.  For  the  whole 
course  of  human  things  is  really,  according  to  this  ex- 


360  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

perience,  leading  up  to  the  fulfilment  of  Christ's 
promise  to  his  disciples :  "  Fear  not,  little  flock !  for 
it  is  your  Father's  good  pleasure  to  give  you  the 
kingdom."  And  thus  that  comes  after  all  to  be  true, 
which  St.  Paul  announced  prematurely  to  the  first 
generation  of  Christians :  "  When  Christ,  who  is  our 
life,  shall  appear,  then  shall  ye  also  appear  with  him 
in  glory."  And  the  author  of  the  Apocalypse,  in  like 
manner,  foretold :  "  The  kingdom  of  the  world  is  be- 
come the  kingdom  of  our  Lord  and  his  Christ."  The 
kingdom  of  the  Eternal  the  world  is  already  become, 
by  its  chief  nations  professing  the  religion  of  right- 
eousness. The  kingdom  of  Christ  the  world  will 
have  to  become,  it  is  on  its  way  to  become,  because 
the  profession  of  righteousness,  except  as  Christ  in- 
terpreted righteousness,  is  vain.  We  can  see  the 
process,  we  are  ourselves  part  of  it,  and  can  in  our 
measure  forward  or  keep  back  its  completion. 

When  the  prophet,  indeed,  says  to  Israel,  on  the 
point  of  being  restored  by  Cyrus:  "  The  nation  and 
kingdom  that  will  not  serve  thee  shall  perish!  "  the 
promise,  applied  literally,  fails.  But  extended  to  that 
idea  of  righteousness,  of  which  Israel  was  the  depos- 
itary and  in  which  the  real  life  of  Israel  lay,  the 
promise  is  true,  and  we  can  see  it  steadily  fulfilling 
itself.  In  like  manner,  when  the  Apostle  says  to  the 
Colossians,  instructed  that  the  second  advent  would 
come  in  their  own  generation :  "  When  Christ,  who 
is  our  life,shall  appear,  then  shall  ye  also  appear  with 
him  in  glory!  "  the  promise,  applied  literally  ;is  the 
Apostle  meant  it  and  the  Colossians  understood  it, 


TRUE  GREATNESS  OF  CHRISTIANITY.         $61 

fails.  But  divested  of  this  Aberglaube  or  extra- 
belief,  it  is  true ;  if  indeed  the  world  can  be  shown — 
and  it  can — to  be  moving  necessarily  towards  the 
triumph  of  that  Christ  in  whom  the  Colossian  dis- 
ciples lived,  and  whose  triumph  is  the  triumph  of  all 
his  disciples  also. 


Let  us  keep  hold  of  this  same  experimental  process 
in  dealing  with  the  promise  of  immortality;  although 
here,  if  anywhere,  Aberglaube,  extra-belief,  hope,  an- 
ticipation, may  well  be  permitted  to  come  in.  Still, 
what  we  need  for  our  foundation  is  not  Aberglaube, 
but  Glaube;  not  extra-belief  in  what  is  beyond  the 
range  of  possible  experience,  but  belief  in  what  can 
and  should  be  known  to  be  true. 

By  what  futilities  the  demonstration  of  our  immor- 
tality may  be  attempted,  is  to  be  seen  in  Plato's 
PJiaedo.  Man's  natural  desire  for  continuance,  how- 
ever little  it  may  be  worth  as  a  scientific  proof  of  our 
immortality,  is  at  least  a  proof  a  thousand  times 
stronger  than  any  such  demonstration.  The  want  of 
solidity  in  such  argument  is  so  palpable  that  one 
scarcely  cares  to  turn  a  steady  regard  upon  it  at  all. 
But  of  the  common  Christian  conception  of  immor- 
tality the  want  of  solidity  is  perhaps  most  conclu- 
sively shown  by  the  impossibility  of  so  framing  it,  as 
that  it  will  at  all  support  a  steady  regard  turned  upon 
it.  In  our  English  popular  religion,  for  instance, 
the  common  conception  of  a  future  state  of  bliss  is 


302  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

that  of  the  Vision  of  Mirza :  "  Persons  dressed  in 
glorious  habits  with  garlands  on  their  heads,  passing 
among  the  trees,  lying  down  by  the  fountains,  or  rest- 
ing on  beds  of  flowers,  amid  a  confused  harmony  of 
singing  birds,  falling  waters,  human  voices,  and 
musical  instruments."  Or,  even,  with  many,  it  is 
that  of  a  kind  of  perfected  middle-class  home,  with 
labor  ended,  the  table  spread,  goodness  all  around,  the 
lost  ones  restored,  hymnody  incessant.  "Poor  frag- 
ments all  of  this  low  earth!  "  Keble  might  well  say. 
That  this  conception  of  immortality  cannot  possibly 
be  true  we  feel,  the  moment  we  consider  it  seriously; 
and  yet  who  can  devise  any  conception  of  a  future 
Mate  of  bliss  which  shall  bear  close  examination  bet- 
tert 

Here,  again,  it  is  far  best  to  take  what  is  experi- 
mentally true,  and  nothing  else,  ae  our  foundation, 
and  afterwards  to  let  hope  and  aspiration  grow,  if  so 
it  may  be,  out  of  this.  Israel  had  said  :  "  In  the  way 
of  righteousness  is  life,  and  in  the  pathway  thereof 
there  is  no  death."  And  by  a  kind  of  short  cut  to 
the  conclusion  thus  laid  down,  the  Jews  constructed 
their  fairy-tale  of  an  advent,  judgment,  and  resur- 
rection, as  \ve  find  it  in  the  Book  of  Daniel.  Jesus 
had  said :  "  If  a  man  keep  my  word,  he  shall  never 
death;  "  and  by  a  kind  of  short  cut  to  the  con- 
clusion thus  laid  down.  Christians  constructed  their 
fairy-tale  of  the  second  advent,  the  resurrection  of 
the  body,  the  New  .lemsalem.  But  instead  of  fairy- 
tales, let  us  !>egin,  at  least,  with  certainties. 

And  a  certainty  is  the  sense  of  life,  of  being  truly 


TRUE  GREATNESS  OF  CHRISTIANITY.         363 

alive,  which  accompanies  righteousness.  If  this  ex- 
perimental sense  does  not  rise  to  be  stronger  in  us, 
does  not  rise  to  the  sense  of  being  inextinguishable, 
that  is  probably  because  our  experience  of  righteous- 
ness is  really  so  very  small ;  and  here  we  may  well 
permit  oursehres  to  trust  Jesus,  whose  practice  and 
intuition  both  of  them  went,  in  these  matters,  so  far 
deeper  than  ours.  At  any  rate,  we  have  in  our  ex- 
perience this  strong  sense  of  life  from  righteousness 
to  start  with  ;  capable  of  being  developed,  apparently, 
by  progress  in  righteousness  into  something  immeas- 
urably stronger.  Here  is  the  true  basis  for  all  re- 
ligious aspiration  after  immortality.  And  it  is  an 
experimental  basis;  and  therefore,  as  to  grandeur,  it 
is  again,  when  compared  with  the  popular  Aber- 
glaube,  grand  with  all  the  superior  grandeur,  on  a 
subject  of  the  highest  seriousness,  of  reality  over  fan- 
tasy. 

At  present,  the  fantasy  hides  the  grandeur  of  the 
reality.  But  when  all  the  Aberglaube  of  the  second 
advent,  with  its  signs  in  the  sky,  sounding  trumpets 
and  opening  graves,  is  cleared  away,  then  and  not 
till  then  will  come  out  the  profound  truth  and  gran- 
deur of  words  of  Jesus  like  these :  "  The  hour  is  com- 
ing, when  they  that  are  in  the  graves  shall  hear  the 
voice  of  the  Son  of  Man ;  and  they  that  hear  shall 
lice." 

5. 

Finally,  and  above  all.  As,  for  the  right  inculca- 
tion of  righteousness,  we  need  the  inspiring  words  of 


364  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

Israel's  love  for  it,  that  is,  we  need  the  Bible ;  so,  for 
the  right  inculcation  of  the  method  and  secret  of 
Jesus,  we  need  the  epieikeia,  the  sweet  reasonable- 
ness, of  Jesus.  That  is,  in  other  words  again,  we 
need  the  Bible;  for  only  through  the  Bible-records 
of  Jesus  can  we  get  at  his  epieikeia.  Even  in  these 
records,  it  is  and  can  be  presented  but  imperfectly ; 
but  only  by  reading  and  rereading  the  Bible  can  \\ c 
get  at  it  at  all. 

Now,  greatly  as  the  failure,  from  the  stress  laid 
upon  the  pseudo-science  of  Church  dogma,  to  lay 
enough  stress  upon  the  method  and  secret  of  Jesus, 
has  kept  Christianity  back  from  showing  itself  in  its 
full  power,  it  is  probable  that  the  failure  to  apply 
to  the  method  and  secret  of  Jesus,  so  far  as  these 
have  at  any  rate  been  used,  his  sweet  reasonableness 
or  epieikeia,  has  kept  it  back  even  more.  And  the 
infinite  of  the  religion  of  Jesus — its  immense  ca- 
pacity for  ceaseless  progress  and  farther  development 
— lies  principally,  perhaps,  in  the  line  of  extricating 
more  and  more  his  sweet  reasonableness,  and  apply- 
ing it  to  his  method  and  secret.  For  it  is  obvious 
from  experience  how  much  our  use  of  Christ's  method 
and  secret  requires  to  be  guided  and  governed  by  his 
epieikeia;  indeed,  without  this,  his  method  and  secret 
seem  often  of  no  use  at  all.  The  Flagellants  imag- 
ined that  they  were  employing  his  secret;  and  the 
Dissenters,  with  their  "  spirit  of  watchful  jealousy," 
imagine  that  they  are  employing  his  method.  To 
be  sure,  Mr.  Bradlaugh  imagines  that  the  method  and 
the  secret  of  Jesus,  nay  and  Jesus  himself  too,  are 


TRUE  GREATNESS  OF  CHRISTIANITY.         365 

all  baneful,  and  that  the  sooner  we  get  rid  of  them 
all,  the  better.  So  far,  then,  the  Flagellants  and  the 
Dissenters  are  in  advance  of  Mr.  Bradlaugh ;  they 
value  Christianity,  and  they  profess  the  method  and 
secret  of  Jesus.  But  they  employ  them  so  ill  that 
one  is  tempted  to  say  they  might  nearly  as  well  be 
without  them.  And  this  is  because  they  are  wholly 
without  his  sweet  reasonableness,  or  epieikeia.  Now 
this  can  only  be  got,  first,  by  knowing  that  it  is  in 
the  Bible,  and  looking  for  it  there ;  and  then,  by  read- 
ing and  rereading  the  Gospels  continually,  until  we 
catch  something  of  it. 

This,  again,  is  an  experimental  process.  That  the 
epieikeia  or  sweet  reasonableness  of  Jesus  may  be 
brought  to  govern  our  use  of  his  method  and  secret, 
and  that  it  can  and  will  make  our  use  of  his  method 
and  secret  quite  a  different  thing,  is  proved  by  our 
actually  finding  this  to  be  so  when  we  try.  So  that 
the  culmination  of  Christian  righteousness  in  the  ap- 
plying, to  guide  our  use  of  the  method  and  secret  of 
Jesus,  hia  sweet  reasonableness  or  epieikeia,  is  proved 
from  experience.  We  end,  therefore,  as  we  began. 

For  the  whole  series  of  experiences,  of  which  the 
survey  is  thus  completed,  rests,  primarily,  upon  one 
fundamental  fact, — itself,  also,  a  fact  of  experience : 
the  necessity  of  righteousness. 


CONCLUSION. 

BUT  now,  after  all  we  have  been  saying  of  the  pre- 
eminence of  righteousness,  we  remember  what  we 
have  said  formerly  in  praise  of  culture  and  of  Hel- 
lenism, and  against  too  much  Hebraism,  too  exclusive 
a  pursuit  of  the  "  one  thing  needful,"  as  people  call 
it.  And  we  cannot  help  wondering  whether  wo  shall 
not  be  reproached  with  inconsistency,  and  told  that 
we  ought  at  least  to  sing,  as  the  Greeks  said,  a  pa- 
linode; and  whether  it  may  not  really  be  so,  and  wo 
ought.  And,  certainly,  if  wo  had  ever  said  that 
Hellenism  was  three  fourths  of  human  life,  and  con- 
duct or  righteousness  but  one  fourth,  a  palinode,  as 
well  as  an  unmusical  man  may,  we  would  sing,  lint 
we  have  never  said  it.  In  praising  culture,  we  have 
never  denied  that  conduct,  not  culture,  is  three- 
fourths  <>f  human  life. 

Only  ii  certainly  appears,  when  the  thing  is  exam- 
ined, that  conduct  comes  to  have  relations  of  a  very 
close  kind  with  culture.  And  the  reason  seems  to  IK 
given  by  some  words  of  our  Bible,  which  though  they 
may  not  be  exactly  the  right  rendering  of  the  original 
in  that  place,  yet  in  themselves  they  explain  the  con- 
nection of  culture  with  conduct  very  well.  "  I  have 
seen  the  travail,"  says  the  Preacher,  "  which  God 
hath  given  to  the  sons  of  men  to  be  exercised  in  it ; 

366 


CONCLUSION. 

he  hath  made  everything  beautiful  in  his  time,  also 
he  hath  set  the  world  in  their  heart."  "  He  hath  set 
the  world  in  their  heart !  "  —that  is  why  art  and 
science,  and  what  we  call  culture,  are  necessary. 
They  may  be  only  one  fourth  of  man's  life,  but  they 
are  there,  as  well  as  the  three  fourths  which  conduct 
occupies; — "he  hath  set  the  world  in  their  heart." 
And,  really,  the  reason  which  we  hence  gather  for  the 
close  connection  between  culture  and  conduct  is  so 
simple  and  natural  that  we  are  almost  ashamed  to 
give  it;  but  we  have  offered  so  many  simple  and  nat- 
ural explanations  in  place  of  the  abstruse  ones  which 
are  current,  that  our  hesitation  is  unreasonable. 

Let  us  suggest  then,  that,  having  this  one  fourth 
of  their  nature  concerned  with  art  and  science,  men 
cannot  but  somehow  employ  it.  If  they  think  that 
the  three  fourths  of  their  nature  concerned  with  con- 
duct are  the  whole  of  their  nature,  and  that  this  is 
all  they  have  to  attend  to,  still  the  neglected  one 
fourth  is  there,  it  ferments,  it  breaks  wildly  out,  it 
employs  itself  all  at  random  and  amiss.  And  hence, 
no  doubt,  our  hymns  and  our  dogmatic  theology.  Of 
our  hymns  we  here  say  nothing;  but  what  is  our 
dogmatic  theology,  except  the  misattribution  to  the 
Bible — the  Book  of  conduct- — of  a  science  and  an 
abstruse  metaphysic  which  is  not  there,  because  our 
theologians  have  in  themselves  a  faculty  for  science  ? 
for  it  makes  one  eighth  of  them.  But  they  do  not 
employ  it  on  its  proper  objects;  so  it  invades  the 
Bible,  and  tries  to  make  the  Bible  what  it  is  not,  and 
+o  put  into  it  what  is  not  there.  And  this  prevents 


368  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

their  attending  enough  to  what  is  in  the  Bible,  and 
makes  them  battle  for  what  is  not  in  the  Bible,  but 
they  have  put  it  there; — battle  for  it  in  a  manner 
clean  contrary,  often,  to  the  teaching  of  the  Bible. 
So  has  arisen,  for  instance,  all  religious  persecution. 
And  thus,  we  say,  has  conduct  itself  become  impaired. 
So  that  conduct  is  impaired  by  the  want  of  sci- 
ence and  culture;  and  our  theologians  really  suf- 
fer, not  from  having  too  much  science,  but  from 
having  too  little.  Whereas,  if  they  had  turned  their 
faculty  for  abstruse  reasoning  towards  the  proper 
objects,  and  had  given  themselves,  besides,  a  wide 
and  large  acquaintance  with  the  productions  of  the 
human  spirit  and  with  men's  way  of  thinking  ami 
of  using  words,  then,  on  the  one  hand,  they  would 
not  have  been  tempted  to  misemploy  on  the  Bible 
their  faculty  for  abstruse  reasoning,  for  they  would 
have  had  plenty  of  other  exercise  for  it ;  and,  on  the 
other  hand,  they  would  have  escaped  that  literary  inex- 
perience, which  now  makes  them  fancy  that  the  Bible 
language  is  scientific  and  fit  matter  for  the  applica- 
tion of  their  powers  of  abstruse  reasoning  to  it,  when 
it  is  no  such  thing.  Then  they  would  have  seen  the 
fallacy  of  confounding  the  obscurity  attaehina  to  the 
idea  of  God, — that  vast  not  ourselves  which  tran- 
scends us, — with  the  obscurity  attaching  to  the  idea 
of  their  Trinity,  a  confused  metaphysical  speculation 
which  puzzles  us.  The  one,  they  would  have  per- 
ceived, is  the  obscurity  of  the  immeasurable  depth  of 
air,  the  other  is  the  obscurity  of  a  fog.  And  f"i:. 
they  would  have  known,  has  no  proper  place  in  our 


CONCLUSION.  369 

conceptions  of  God;  since  whatever  our  minds  can 
possess  of  God  they  know  clearly,  for  no  man,  says 
Goethe,  possesses  what  he  does  not  understand;  but 
they  can  possess  of  Him  but  a  very  little.  All  this 
our  dogmatic  theologians  would  know,  if  they  had 
had  more  science  and  more  literature.  And  there- 
fore, simple  as  the  Bible  and  conduct  are,  still  culture 
seems  to  be  required  for  them, — required  to  prevent 
our  mishandling  and  sophisticating  them. 


2. 


Culture,  then,  and  literature  are  required,  even 
in  the  interest  of  religion  itself,  and  when,  taking 
nothing  but  conduct  into  account,  we  make  God,  as 
Israel  made  him,  to  be  simply  and  solely  "  the  Eter- 
nal Power,  not  ourselves,  that  makes  for  righteous- 
ness/' But  we  are  not  to  forget,  that,  grand  as  this 
conception  of  God  is,  and  well  as  it  meets  the  wants 
of  far  the  largest  part  of  our  being,  of  three  fourths 
of  it,  yet  there  is  one  fourth  of  our  being  of  which 
it  does  not  strictly  meet  the  wants,  the  part  which 
is  concerned  with  art  and  science ;  or,  in  other  words, 
with  beauty  and  exact  knowledge. 

For  the  total  man,  therefore,  the  truer  conception 
of  God  is  as  "  the  Eternal  Power,  not  ourselves,  by 
which  all  things  fulfill  the  law  of  their  being;  "  by 
which,  therefore,  we  fulfill  the  law  of  our  being  so 
far  as  our  being  is  aesthetic  and  intellective,  as  well 
as  so  far  as  it  is  moral.  And  it  is  evident,  as  we 
have  before  now  remarked,  that  in  this  wider  sense 

24 


LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

God  is  displeased  and  disserved  by  many  tiling? 
which  cannot  be  said,  except  by  putting  a  strain  upon 
words,  to  displease  and  disserve  him  as  the  God  of 
righteousness.  He  is  displeased  and  disserved  by 
men  uttering  such  doggerel  hymns  as:  "  Sing  glory. 
glory,  glory  to  the  great  God  Triune !  "  and :  "  Out 
of  my  stony  griefs  Bethels  Til  raise !  "  and:  "  My 
Jesus  to  know,  and  feel  his  blood  flow,  'tis  life  ever- 
lasting, 'tis  heaven  below!"  or  by  the  Bishop  <>f 
Gloucester  uttering  such  pseudo-science  as  his 
"  blessed  truth  that  the  God  of  the  universe  is  a  Per- 
son." But  it  would  be  harsh  to  give,  at  present,  this 
turn  to  our  employment  of  the  phrases,  pleasing  God, 
displeasing  God. 

And  yet,  as  man  makes  progress,  we  shall  surely 
come  to  this;  for,  the  clearer  our  conceptions  in 
science  and  art  become,  the  more  will  they  assimilate 
themselves  to  the  conceptions  of  duty  in  conduct,  will 
become  practically  stringent  like  rules  of  conduct. 
and  will  invite  the  same  sort  of  language  in  dealiit-: 
with  them.  And  so  far  let  us  venture  to  poach  on  M. 
Emile  Burnouf's  manor,  and  to  talk  about  the  Aryan 
genius,  as  to  say,  that  the  love  of  science,  and  tin- 
energy  and  honesty  in  the  pursuit  of  science,  in  tin- 
best  of  the  Aryan  races,  do  seem  to  correspond  in  a 
remarkable  way  to  the  love  of  conduct,  and  the  energy 
and  honesty  in  the  pursuit  of  conduct,  in  the  best  <»f 
the  Semitic.  To  treat  science  with  the  same  kind  <>)' 
seriousness  as  conduct,  does  seem,  therefore,  to  be 
a  not  impossible  thing  for  the  Aryan  genius  to 
come  to. 


CONCLUSION.  371 

But  for  all  this,  however",  man  is  hardly  jet  ripe. 
For  our  race,  as  we  see  it  now  and  as  ourselves  we 
form  a  part  of  it,  the  true  God  is  and  mii.-t  !;;•  pre- 
eminently the  God  of  the  Bible,  the  Eternal  who 
makes  for  righteousness,  from  whom  Jesus  came 
forth,  and  whose  Spirit  governs  the  course  of  hu- 
manity. Only,  we  see  that  even  for  apprehending 
this  God  of  the  Bible  rightly  and  not  wrongly,  letters, 
which  so  many  people  disparage,  and  what  we  call, 
in  general,  culture,  seem  to  be  necessary. 

And  meanwhile,  to  prevent  our  at  all  pluming  our- 
selves on  having  apprehended  what  so  much  baffles 
our  dogmatic  friends  (although  indeed  it  is  not  so 
much  we  who  apprehended  it  as  the  "  Zeit-Geist  " 
who  discovers  it  to  us),  what  a  chastening  and  whole- 
some reflection  for  us  it  is,  that  it  is  only  to  our 
natural  inferiority  to  these  ingenious  men  that  we  are 
indebted  for  our  advantage  over  them !  For  while 
they  were  born  with  talents  for  metaphysical  specu- 
lation and  abstruse  reasoning,  we  are  so  notoriously 
deficient  in  everything  of  that  kind,  that  our  ad- 
versaries often  taunt  us  with  it,  and  have  held  us  up 
to  public  ridicule  as  being"  without  a  system  of 
philosophy,  based  on  principles  interdependent,  sub- 
ordinate and  coherent."  And  so  we  were  thrown  on 
letters;  thrown  upon  reading  this  and  that, — which 
anybody  can  do, — and  thus  gradually  getting  a  notion 
of  the  history  of  the  human  mind,  which  enables  us 
(the  "  Zeit-Geist  "  favoring)  to  correct  in  reading  the 
Bible  some  of  the  mistakes  into  which  men  of  more 
metaphysical  talents  than  literary  have  fallen.  Crip- 


•J72  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

pins  in  like  manner  have  been  known,  now  and  then, 
to  be  cast  by  their  very  infirmity  upon  some  mental 
pursuit  which  has  turned  out  happily  for  them ;  and 
a  good  fortune  of  this  kind  has  perhaps  been  ours. 

But  we  do  not  forget  that  this  good  fortune  we  owe 
to  our  weakness,  and  that  the  natural  superiority  re- 
mains with  our  adversaries.  And  some  day,  JHM-- 
haps,  the  nature  of  God  may  be  as  well  known  as  the 
nature  of  a  cone  or  a  triangle;  and  then  the  Bishop-; 
of  Winchester  and  Gloucester  will  deduce  its  pn>]>- 
erties  with  success,  and  make  their  brilliant  logical 
play  about  it, — rightly,  instead  of,  as  now,  wrongly ; 
and  will  resume  all  their  advantage.  But  this  will 
hardly  be  in  our  time ;  so  that  the  superiority  of  this 
pair  of  distinguished  metaphysicians  will  never,  per- 
haps, after  all,  be  of  any  real  advantage  to  them,  but 
they  will  be  deluded  and  be  mocked  by  it  until  they 
die. 


THJ5  BKD. 


POPULAR  LITERATURE  FOR  THE  MASSES, 
COMPRISING  CHOICE  SELECTIONS  FROM  THE 
TREASURES  OF  THE  WORLD'S  KNOWLEDGE, 
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kbbe     ConsUntin.        BY      Luoovic 

HALBVY. 

Abbott,  BY  SIR  WALTER  SCOTT. 
Adam  Bede.  BY  GEORGE  ELIOT. 
Addison's  Essays.  EDITED  BY  JOHN 

RICHARD  GREEN. 
Aeneid    of    VirgiL     TRANSLATED    BY 

JOHN  CONNINDTON. 
Aesop's  Fables. 
Alexander,    the    Great,    Life    of.     BY 

JOHN  WILLIAMS. 
Alfred,  the  Great,  Life  of.     BY  THOMAS 

HUGHES. 

Alhambra.     BY  WASHINGTON  IRVING. 
Alic^  in  Wonderland,  an-J  Through  the 

Looking-Glass.  BY  LEWIS  CARROLL. 
Alice  Lorraine.  BY  R.  D.  BLACKMORB 
All  Sorts  and  Conditions  of  Men.  BY 

WALTER  BESANT. 

Alton  Locke.     BY  CHARLES  KINGSLEY. 
Aniiel's     Journal.     TRANSLATED     BY 

MRS.  HUMPHREY  WARD. 
Andersen's  Fairy  Tales. 
Anne  of  Geirstein.     BY  SIR  WALTER 

SCOTT. 

Antiquary.     BY  SIR  WALTER  SCOTT. 
Arabian  Nights'  Entertainments. 
Ardath.     Bv    MARIE   CORELLI. 
Arnold,  Benedict,  Life  of.     BY  GEORGE 

CANNI.VG  HILL. 
Arnold's    Poems.        BY      MATTHEW 

ARNOLD. 

Around  the  World  in  the  Yacht  Sun- 
beam.    BY  MRS.  BRASSBY. 
Arundel     Motto.     BY     MARY     CECIL 

HAY. 
At  the  Back  of  the  North  Wind.     BY 

GEORGE  MACDONALD. 
Attic  Philosopher.     BY    EMILR     Sou- 

VESTRB. 
Auld    Licht    Idylls.     BY    JAMES    M. 

BARRIB. 

Aunt  Diana.     BY  ROSA  N.  CAREY. 
Autobiography  of  Benjamin  Franklin. 
Autocrat  of  the  Breakfast  Table.     Bv 

O.  W.  HOLMES. 
Averil.     BY  ROSA  N.  CAREY. 
Bacon's  Essays.     BY  FRANCIS  BACON. 
Barbara  Heathcote's  TriaL     BY  ROSA 

N.    CARt*'. 

Barnaby  Rud(e.  BY  CHARLES  DICK- 
ENS. 

Barrack  Room  Ballads.  BY  RUDYARD 
KIPLIM;. 

Betrothed.     BY  SIR  WALTER  SCOTT. 

Beulah.     BY  AUGUSTA  J.  EVANS. 

Black  Beauty,     BY  ANNA  SEW  ALL. 

Black  Dwarf.  BY  SIR  WALTER 
ft, 

Black  Rock.     BY  RALPH  CONNOR. 

Black  Tulip.     BY  ALBXANDRB  DUMAS. 

Bleak  House.     BY  CHARLES  DICKENS. 

Blithedale  Romance.  BY  NATHANIEL 
HAWTHORNE. 

Bondman      BY  HALL  CAINK. 

Book  of  Golden  Deeds.  BY  CHAR- 
LOTTE M.  Yo  .T.K. 

Boone,  Daniel.  Life  of.     bv  CK.-II    H. 

UAKTLBV 


Bride      of     Lammermoor.     Pv      SK 

WALTER  SCOTT. 

Bride  of  the  Nile.     BY  GEORGE  EBBRS. 
Browning's    Poems.     BY    ELIZABETH 

BARRETT  BROWNING. 
Browning's      Poems.       (SELECTIONS.) 

BY  ROBERT  BROWNING. 
Bryant's  Poems.  (EARLY.)     BY  WILL- 
IAM CULLBN  BRYANT. 
Burgomaster's     Wife.     BY     GEORGE 

EBERS. 

Burn's  Poems.     BY  ROBERT  BURNS. 
By  Order  of  th«  King.     BY   VICTOI. 

HUGO. 

Byron's  Poems.     BY  LORD  BYRON. 
Caesar,    Julius,    Life    of.     BY    JAM  B.I 

ANTHONY  FROUDB. 
Carson,    Kit,    Life    of.     BY   CHARLES 

BURDETT. 
Cary's  Poems.     Bv  ALICE  AND  PHOBBB 

GARY. 
Cast  Up  by  the  Sea.     BY  SIR  SAMUEL 

BAKER. 
Charlemagne  (Charles  the  Great"),  Life 

of.     BY  THOMAS  HODGKIN,  D.  C.  L 
Charles  Auchester.     BY  E.  BURGER. 
Character.     BY  SAMUEL  SMILES. 
Charles      O'Malley.        BY      CHARLES 

LEVER. 
Chesterfield's  Letters.     BY  LORD  CHES. 

TERPIELD. 

Chevalier     de     Maison     Rouge.     Bv 

ALBXANDRB  DUMAS. 
Chicot    the   Jester.     BY    ALEXANDRB 

DUMAS. 
Children  of  the  Abbey.     BY  RBGINA 

MARIA  ROCHE. 
Child's     History     of     England.     BY 

CHARLES.  DICKENS. 
Christmas     Stories.        BY      CHARLES 

DICKENS. 
Cloister  and  the  Hearth.     BY  CHARLES 

RBADB. 

Coleridge's  Poems.     BY  SAMUEL  TAY- 
LOR COLERIDGE. 
Columbus,   Christopher,   Life   of.     BY 

WASHINGTON  IRVING. 
Companions  of  Jehu.     BY  ALEXANDRB 

Dl'MAS. 

Complete  Angler.  BY  WALTON  AND 
COTTON. 

Conduct  of  Life.  BY  RALPH  WALDO 
EMERSON. 

Confessions  of  an  Opium  Eater.  Bv 
THOMAS  DB  QUINCBY. 

Conquest  of  Granada.  BY  WASHING- 
TON IRVING. 

Conscript     BY  ERCKMANN-CHATRIAW. 

Conspiracy  of  Pontiac.  BY  FRANCIS 
PARKMAN,  JR. 

Conspirators.  BY  ALBXANDRB  DU- 
MAS. 

Consuelo.     BY  GEOKGB  SAND. 

Cook's  Voyages.  BY  CAPTAIN  JAMBS 
COOK. 

Corinne.     BY  MADAMB  DB  STABL. 

Countess  de  Charney.     bY  ALBXANDRB 

.".ountess    Gisela.      BY     fj      MAKL.TT 


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Countess  of  Rudolstadt  BY  GEORGE 
SAND. 

Count  Robert  of  Paris.  BY  SIR 
WALTER  SCOTT. 

Country  Doctor.  Bv  HONORS  DE 
BALZAC. 

Courtship  of  Miles  Standish.  BY  H.  \V. 
LONGFELLOW. 

Cousin  Maude.     BY  MARY  J.  HOLMES. 

Cranford.     BY  MRS.  GASKELL. 

Crockett,  David,  Life  of.  AN  AUTOBI- 
OGRAPHY. 

Cromwell,  Oliver,  Life  of.  BY  EDWIN 
PAXTON  HOOD. 

Crown  of  Wild  Olive.  BY  JOHN 
RUSKIN' 

Crusades.      BY  GEO.  W.  Cox,  M.  A. 

Daniel  Deronda.     BY  GEORGE  ELIOT. 

Darkness  and  Daylight.  BY  MARY  J. 
HOLMES. 

Data  of  Ethics.  BY  HERBERT  SPEN- 
CER. 

Daughter  of   an   Empress,   The.     BY 

LOUISA    MUHLBACH. 

David  Copperfield.  BY  CHARLES 
DICKENS. 

Days  of  Bruce.     BY  GRACE  AGUILAR. 

Deemster,  The.     BY  HALL  CAINE. 

Deerslayer,  The.  BY  JAMES  FBNI- 
MORE  COOPER. 

Descent  of  Man.  BY  CHARLES  DAR- 
WIN. 

Discourses  of  Epictetus.  TRANSLATED 
BY  GEORGE  LONG. 

Divine  Comedy.  (DANTK.)  TRANS- 
LATED BY  REV.  H.  F.  CAREY. 

Dombey  St.  Son.  BY  CHARLES  DICKENS. 

ponal  Grant.  BY  GEOPGE  MACDON- 
ALD. 

Donovan.     BY  EDNA  LYALL. 

Dora  Deane.     BY  MARY  J.  HOLMES. 

Dove  in  the  Eagle's  Nest.  BY  CHAR- 
LOTTE M.  YONGE. 

Dream  Life.     BY  IF  MARVB*.. 

Dr.  Jekyll  and  Mr.  Hyde.  f>  /  R.  L. 
STEVENSON. 

Duty.     BY  SAMUEL  SMILES. 

Early  Days  of  Christianity.  BY  F.  W. 
FARRAR. 

East  Lynne.     BY  MRS.  HENRY  Woor». 

Edith  Lyle'a  Secret.  BY  MARY  j 
HOLMES. 

Education.     BY  HERBERT  SPENCEK. 

Egoist.     BY  GEORGE  MEREniTH, 

Egyptian    Princess.     BY    GEORGE 
EBERS. 

Eight  Hundred  Leagues  on  the  Ama- 
zon. BY  JULES  VERNE. 

filiot's  Poems.     BY  GEORGE  ELIOT. 

Elizabeth  and  her  German  Garden. 

Elizabeth  (Queen  of  England),  Life  of. 
BY  EDWARD  SPENCER  BEESLY,  M.A. 

Elsie  Venner.  BY  OLIVER  WENDELL 
HOLMES. 

Emerson's  Essays.  (COMPLETE.)  BY 
RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON. 

Emerson's  Poems.  BY  RALPH  WALDO 
EMERSON. 

Er.plnh  Orphans.  BY  MARY  T. 
HOLMES 


English  Traits.      Bv  R.  W.  EMERSON. 
Essays     in     Criticism.     (.FIRST     AND 

SECOND     SERIES.)     BY     MATTHEW 

ARNOLD. 

Essays  of  Elia.     BY  CHARLES  LAMB. 
Esther.     BY  ROSA  X.  CAREY. 
Ethelyn's     Mistake.     BY     MARY     J. 

HOLMKS. 

Evangeline.     (\VITH   NOTES.)     BY   H. 

W.   LONGFELLOW. 
Evelina.     Bv  FRANCES  BURNEY. 
Fair  Maid  of  Perth.     BY  SIR  V/ALTB* 

SCOTT. 
Fairy  Land  of  Science.     BY  ARABELLA 

B.  BUCKLEY. 
Faust.     (GOETHE.)    TRANSLATED    BV 

ANNA  SWANWICK. 
Felix  Holt.     BY  GEORGE  ELIOT. 
Fifteen  Decisive  Battles  of  the  World 

BY  E.  S.  CREASY. 

File  No.  113.     BY  EMILE  GABORIAXJ. 
Firm  of  Girdlestone.     BY  A.  CONAK 

DOYLE. 

First  Principles.  Bv  HERBERT  SPENCKR. 
First  Violin.     BY  JESSIE  FOTHERGILL, 
For  Lilias.     Bv  ROSA  N.  CAREY. 
Fortunes  of  Nigel.     BY  SIR   WALTER 

SCOTT. 
Forty-Five  Guardsmen.     BY  ALEXAN- 

ORE  DUMAS. 

Foul  Play.     BY  CHARLES  READE. 
Fragments     of     Science.     BY     JOHN 

TYNDALL. 
Frederick,    the    Great,    Life    of.     Bv 

FRANCIS  Kuct.BR. 
Frederick  the  Great  and  His  Court.     Bl 

LOUISA  MUHLBACH. 
French  Revolution.     BY  THOMAS  CAR. 

LYLE. 

From  the  Earth  to  the  Moon.  BY 
JULES  VERNE. 

Garibaldi,  General,  Life  of.  BY  THEO- 
DORE DWIGHT. 

Gil  Bias,  Adventures  of.     BY  A.  R.  LB 

SAGS. 
Gold     Bug     and     Other     Tales.     Bt 

,  Et>GAR   A.    POE. 

|   Go',d  Elsie.     Bv  E.  MARLITT. 

I   Golden    Treasury.     Bv    FRANCIS    T. 

IPALGRAVE. 
Goldsmith's      Poems.       BY      OLIVJIR 

GOLDSMITH. 
Grandfather's  Chair.     BY  NATHANIBI 

HAWTHORNE. 
Grant,  Ulysses  S.,  Life  of.     BY  J.  T. 

HEADLEY. 

Gray's  Poems.     BY  THOMAS  GRAY. 
Great      Expectations.     7\v     CHARLES 

DICKENS. 
Greek   Heroes.     Fairy   Tales   for   My 

Children.     BY  CHARLES  KINGSLBY. 
Green  Mountain  Boys,  The.     BY  D.  P. 

THOMPSON. 
Grimm's   Household  Tales.     BY   THB 

BROTHERS  GRIMM. 
Grimm's     Popular     Tales.     BY     THB 

BROTHERS  GRIMM. 

Gulliver'g  Travels.     BY  DEAN  SWIFT 
Guv    Mannering.     BY    SIR     \\ 

SCOTT 


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CHARLOTTE  MOLYNBUX  HOLLOWAY. 

Handy  Andy.     BY  SAMUEL  LOVER. 

Hans  of  Iceland.     BY  VICTOR  HUGO. 

Hannibal,  the  Carthaginian,  Life  of. 
BY  THOMAS  ARNOLD,  M.  A. 

Hardy  Norseman,  A.    BY  EDNA  LYALL, 

darold.     BY  BULWER-LYTTON. 

Harry  Lorrequer.    BY  CHARLES  LEVER. 

Heart  of  Midlothian.  BY  Sik  WALTER 
SCOTT. 

3eir  of  Redclyffe.     BY  CHARLBTTK  M. 

YONGE. 

tomans'   Poems.     BY   MRS.   FELICIA 

HEMAKS. 

lenry  Esmond.     BY  WM.  M.  THACK- 
ERAY. 
Henry,  Patrick,  Life  of.     BY  WILLIAM 

WIRT. 

3er  Dearest  Foe.  BY  MRS.  ALEXAN- 
DER. 

Hereward.     BY  CHARLES  KINGSLEY. 
Heriot's  Choice.     BY  ROSA  N.  CAREY. 
Heroes      and       Hero-Worship.         BY 

THOMAS  CARLYLB. 
Hiawatha.     (WITH  NOTES.)     BY  H.  W. 

LONGFELLOW. 
Hidden  Hand,  The.    (COMPLETE.)   BY 

MRS.  E.  D.  E.  N.  SOUTHWORTH. 
History    of    a    Crime.       BY    VICTOR 

HUGO. 
History  of  Civilization  in  Europe.     BY 

M.  GUIZOT. 
Halmes"  Poems.  (  EARLY)  BY  OLIVER 

WENDELL  HOLMES. 
Holy     Roman     Empire.     BY    JAMES 

BRYCE. 
Homestead  on  the  Hillside.     BY  MARY 

.1.  HOLMES. 

Hood's  Poems.     BY  THOMAS  HOOD. 
House     of    the     Seven     Gables.     BY 

NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE. 
Hunchback     of     Notre     Dame.     BY 

VICTOR  HUGO. 

Hypatia.     BY   CHARLES   KINGSLBY. 
Hyperion.     BY    HENRY    WADSWORTH 

LONGFELLOW. 

Iceland  Fisherman,     BY  PIERRB  LOTI. 
Idle  Thoughts  of  an  Idle  Fellow.     BY 

IBROMB  K.  JBROMB. 
Diad,     POPE'S  TRANSLATION. 
Inez.     Bt  AUGUSTA  J.  EVANS. 
ingelow's  Poems.     BY  JEAN  INCBLOW. 
Initials.     BY    THB    BARONESS    TAUT- 

PHOBUS. 
Intellectual      Life.     BY     PHILIP     G. 

HAMKRTON. 
In   the    Counsellor's   House.     BY    £. 

MARLITT. 
In     the     Golden     Days.    BY     EDNA 

LYALI. 
[n    ihe    Heart    of    the    Storm.     BY 

M« XWELL  GRAY. 
In  the  Schillingscourt     BY  E.  MAR. 

LITT. 

tsbmael.     (COMPI.KTB.)     BY   MRS.   E. 

\     SOUTBI 
.!    I-    Nev»'  To«   Late    to    Mend.     BY 

.   UAULB* 


Ivanhoe.     BY  SIR  WALTER  SCOTT. 

}ane  Eyre.     BY  CHARLOTTE  BRONTE. 
efferson,      Thomas,      Life      of.     BY 

SAMUEL  M.  SCHMUCKBR,  LL.D. 
Joan    of    Arc,    Life    of.     BY    JULES 

MICHELET. 
John   Halifax,   Gentleman.     BY   Miss 

MULOCK. 
Jones,  John  Paul,  Life  of.     BY  JAMBF 

OTIS. 
Joseph     Balsamo.     BY     ALEXANDRI 

DUMAS. 
Josephine,  Empress  of  France.  Life  o- 

BY  FREDERICK.  A.  OBER. 
Keats'  Poems.     BY  JOHN  KEATS. 
Kenilworth.     BY  SIR  WALTER  Scon 
Kidnapped.     BY  R.  L.  STEVENSON. 
King  Arthur  and  His  Noble  Knights. 

Bv  MARY  MACLEOD. 
Knickerbocker's  History  of  New  Yoik 

BY  WASHINGTON  IRVING. 
Knight  Errant.     BY  EDNA  LYALL. 
Koran.     TRANSLATED      BY      GEORGB 

SALE. 
Lady  of  the  Lake.     (WITH  NOTES.)     By 

SIR  \VAI.TPR  SCOTT. 
Lady  with  the  Rubies.     BY  E.  MAR- 

LITT. 

Lafayette,  Marquis  de,  Life  o*  BY 
I".  C.  HEADLEY. 

Lalla  Rookh.  (WITH  NOTES.)  BY 
THOMAS  MOORE. 

Lamplighter.  BY  MARIA  S.  CUM- 
MINS. 

Last  Days  of  Pompeii.  BY  BULWER- 
LYTTON. 

Last  of  the  Barons.  BY  BULWER- 
LYTTON. 

Last  of  the  Mohicans.  BY  JAMES 
FBNIMORB  COOPER. 

Lay  of  the  Last  Minstrel.  (WITH 
NOTES.)  BY  SIR  WALTER  SCOTT. 

Lee,  General  Robert  E.,  Life  of.  Bv 
G.  MBRCER  ADAM. 

Lena  Rivers.     BY  MARY  J.  HOLMES. 

Life  of  Christ,  BY  FREDERICK  W. 
FARRAR. 

Life  of  Jesus.     BY  ERNEST  RBNAN. 

Light  of  Asia.  BY  SIR  EI>\VII< 
ARNOLD. 

Light  That  Failed.  BY  RUD^ARI 
KIPLING. 

Lincoln,  Abraham,  Life  of.  BJ 
HENRY  KBTCIIAM. 

Lincoln's  Speeches.  SELECTED  ANI 
EDITED  BY  G.  MERCER  ADAM. 

Literature  and  Dogma.  BY  MATMIKV 
ARNOLD. 

Little  Dorrit.     BY  CHARLES  DICKENS. 

Little  Minister.     BY  JAMES  M.  BARRIB. 

Livingstone,  David,  Life  of.  BY 
THOMAS  HUGHB&. 

Longfellow's  Poems.  (EARLY.)  Bi 
HENRY  W.  LONGFELLOW. 

Lorna  Doone.     BY  R.  D.  BLACKMOR*. 

Louise  de  la  Valliere  Hv  A i  I:\AMJHB 
DI-MA* 

Love  Me  Little,  Love  '•'.<:  Long.  Bt 
'  H« HI  us  KKADK 


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RrssELi,  LOWELL. 
Lucile.     Bv  OWEN  MEREDITH. 
Macaria.     By  AUGUSTA  J.  EVANS. 
Macaulay's  Literary  Essays.     BY  T.  B. 

MACAUI.AY. 
Macaulay's  Poems.     BY  THOMAS  BAB- 

IXGTON  MACAULAY. 
Madame    Therese.     BY     ERCKMANN- 

CHATRIAN. 

Maggie  Miller.  BY  MARY  J.  HOLMES. 
Magic  Skin.  BY  HONORS  DE  BALZAC. 
Mahomet,  Life  of.  BY  WASHINGTON 

IRVING. 
Makers    of   Florence.     BY  MRS.  OLI- 

PHANT. 

Makers    of    Venice.    BY    MRS.    OLI- 

PHANT. 

Man  and  Wife.     BY  WILKIE  COLLINS. 

Man  in  the  Iron  Mask.  BY  ALBXAN- 
DRB  DUMAS. 

Marble  Faun.  BY  NATHANIEL  HAW- 
THORNE. 

Marguerite  de  la  Valois.     BY  ALBX- 

ANDRB     DUMAS. 

Marian  Grey.     BY  MARY  J.  HOLMES. 
Marius,  The  Epicurian.     BY  WALTER 

PATER. 
Marmion.     (WiTH    NOTES.)    BY   SIR 

WALTER  SCOTT. 
Marquis     of     Lossie.    BY     GBORGB 

MACDONALD. 
Martin     Chuzzlewit,       BY     CHARLES 

DICKENS. 
Mary,   Queen  of  Scots,  Life  of.     BY 

P.  C.  HEADLBY. 

Mary  St.  John.  BY  ROSA  N.  CAREY. 
Master  of  Ballantrae.  The.  BY.  R.  L. 

STEVENSON. 
Masterman  Ready.     BY  CAPTAIN  MAR- 

RYATT. 

Meadow  Brook.  BY  MARY  J.  HOLMES. 
Meditations  of  Marcus  Aurelius. 

TRANSLATED  BY  GEORGE  LONG. 
Memoirs  of  a  Physician.     BY  ALEXAN- 

DRE  DUMAS. 

Merle's  Crusade.     BY  ROSA  N.  CAREY. 
Micah  Clarke.     BY  A.  CONAN  DOLYE. 
Michael  Strogoff.     BY  JULES  VERNE. 
Middlemarch.     BY  GEORGE   ELIOT. 
Midshipman  Easy.     BY  CAPTAIN  MAR- 
RY ATT 

Mildred.     BY  MARY  J.  HOLMES. 
Milibank.     BY  MARY  J.  HOLMES. 
Mill  on  the  Floss.     BY  GEORGE  ELIOT. 
Milton's  Poems.     BY  JOHN  MILTON. 
Mine  Own  People.     BYRUDYARDKIP- 

LING. 

Minister's  Wooing,  The.     BY  HARRIET 

BEECHER  STOWE. 

Monastery.     BY  SIR  WALTER  SCOTT. 
Moonstone.     BY   WILKIE   COLLINS. 
Moore's  Poems.     BY  THOMAS   MOORS 
Mosses    from    an     Old     Manse.     BY 

NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE. 
Murders    in    the    Rue    Morgue.     BY 

EDGAR  ALLEN  POE. 
Mysterious  Island.     BY  JUI.ES  VERNE. 
Napoleon  Bonaoarte.    Life  of      Bv  F 

C.     h&Al.l.n 


NapoJeon   and   His  Marshals.     BY  J. 

T.  HEADLEY. 
Natural  Law  in  the  Spiritual    World. 

BY  HENRY  DRUMMOND. 
Narrative  of  Arthur  Gordon  Pym.     B» 

EDGAR  ALLAN  POE. 
Nature,  Addresses  and  Lecture*,     Bt 

R.  W.  EMERSON. 
Nellie's     Memories.     BY     ROSA     N. 

CAREY. 
Nelson,  Admiral  Horatio.  Life  of.     Bv 

ROBERT  SOUTHEY. 
Newcomes.     BY  WILLIAM  M.  FHAOK- 

ERAY. 
Nicholas  Nickleby.     BY  CHAS.  DICK 

ENS. 

Ninety-Three.     BY  VICTOR  HUGO. 
Not  Like  Other  Girls.     BY  ROSA   N 

CAREY. 

Odyssey.     POPE'S  TRANSLATION. 
Old    Curiosity    Shop.     BY    CHARLES 

DICKENS. 
Old  Maro'selle's  Secret.     BY  E.  MAR. 

LITT. 

Old     Mortality.     BY     SIR     WALTER 

SCOTT. 
Old    Myddleton's   Money.     BY    MART 

CECIL  HAY. 

Oliver  Twist.     BY  CHAS.  DICKENS. 
Only   the    Governess.     BY    ROSA    N. 

CAREY. 
On     the     Heights.    BY     BBRTHOLD 

AUERBACH. 

Oregon  Trail.  BY  FRANCIS  PARK- 
MAN. 

Origin  of  Species.  BY  CHARLES 
DARWIN. 

Other  Worlds  than  Ours.  BY  RICH- 
ARD PROCTOR. 

Our  Bessie.     BY  ROSA  N.  CAREY. 

Our  Mutual  Friend.  BY  CHARLES 
DICKENS. 

Outre-Mer.     BY  H.  W.  LONGFELLOW. 

Owl's  Nest.     BY  E.  MARLITT. 

Page  of  the  Duke  of  Savoy.  BY 
ALEXANDRE  DUMAS. 

Pair  of  Blue  Eyes.  BY  THOMAS 
HARDY. 

Pan    Michael      BY    HENRYK    SIEN- 

KIEWICZ. 

Past   and   Pressnt.     BY   THOS.    CAR. 

LYLE. 

Pathfinder.     BY     JAMES     FBNIMORI 

COOPER. 
Paul    and    Virginia.     BY    B.    BE    ST. 

PIERRE. 
Pendennis.  History  of.     BY   Wu.  M. 

THACKERAY. 

Penn,  William,  Life  of.  BY  W.  HEP- 
WORTH  DlXON. 

Pere  Goriot.     BY  HONORS  DB  BALZAC. 
Peter,  the  Great,  Life  of.     BY  JOHN 

BARROW. 
Peveril  of  the  Peak.     BY  SIR  WALTBB 

SCOTT. 
Phantom  Rickshaw.  The.    BY   RUD- 

YARD  KIPLING. 
Philip  IL  of  Spain,  Life  of      BY  MAR 

TIN  A.  S.  HUME 
Pirc»o1a      Bv  X    B   SAINTINE- 


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ENS 

Pilgrim  s  Progress.    BY  JOHN  BUNYAN. 
Pillar  of  Fire.     BY  Rxv.  J.  H.  INORA- 

HAM. 

Pilot.     BY  JAMBS  FBKIMORE  COOPER. 
Pioneers.       BY      JAMES      FENIMORB 

COOPER. 

Pirate.     BY  SIR  WALTER  SCOTT. 
Plain  Tales  from  the  Hills.     BY  RUD- 

YARD  KIPLING. 
Plato's  Dialogues.    TRANSLATED  BY  J. 

WRIGHT,  M.  A. 
Pleasures    of    Life.     BY    SIR     JOHN 

LUBBOCK. 

Poe'p  Poems.     BY  EDGAR  A.  POE. 
Pope's  Poe^ns.     BY  ALEXANDER  POPE. 
Prairie.     BY  JAMES  F.  COOPER. 
Pride   and   Prejudice.     BY  JANE  AUS- 
TEN. 
Prince  of  the  House   of  David.     BY 

REV.  J.  H.  INGRAHAM. 
Princess  of  the  Moor.     Bv  E.  MARLITT. 
Princess     of     Thule.     BY     WILLIAM 

BLACK. 

Procter's  Poems.     BY  ADELAIDE  PROC- 
TOR. 
Professor  at  the  Breakfast  Table.     BY 

OLIVER  WENDELL  HOLMES. 
Professor.     BY    CHARLOTTE    BRONTE. 
Prue    and   L     BY   GEORGE    WILLIAM 

CURTIS. 
Put  Yourself  in  His  Place.     BY  CHAS. 

READS. 
Putnam,  General  Israel,  Life  of    BY 

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Queen  Honense.     BY  LOUISA  MUHL- 

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Oueenie's  Whim.     BY  ROSA  N.  CAREY. 
Queen's    Necklace.     BY    ALEXANDRB 

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Quentin  Durward.     BY   SIR  WALTER 

SCOTT. 
Rasselas,    History    of.    BY    SAMUEL 

JOHNSON. 

Redgauntlet.     BY  SIR  WALTER  SCOTT. 
Red    Rover.     BY    JAMES    FENIMORE 

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Regent's  Daughter.     BY  ALBXANDRE 

lJUMAS. 

Reign  of  Law.     BY  DUKE  OF  ARGYLE. 
Representative      Men.       BY      RALPH 

WAI.DO  EMERSON. 
Republic   of   Plato.    TRANSLATED    BY 

DAVIBS  AND  VAUGHAN. 
Return   of   the   Native.     BY   THOMAS 

HARDY. 

Reveries  of  a  Bachelor.     BY  IK  MAR- 
VEL. 
Reynard  the  Fox.     EDITED  BY  JOSEPH 

JACOBS. 

Rienzi.     BY  BULWBR-LYTTON. 
Richelieu,      Cardinal,     Life     of.     BY 

RICHARD  LODGE. 

Robinson  Crusoe.     BY  DANIEL  DEFOE. 
Rob  Roy.     BY  SIR  WALTER  SCOTT. 
Romance  of  Natuial  History.     BY  P. 

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Rory  O'More.     BY   SAMUEL  LOVER. 
Ros<>  Mather.     BY  MARY  J.  HOLUM. 
Rossetti's  Poems.     BY  GABRIEL  DANTE 

ROSSETTJ. 
Royal     Edinburgh.     BY     MRS.     OL». 

PHANT. 

Rutledge.     BY  MIRIAN  COLES  HARRIS. 
Saint  Michael.     BY  E.  WERNER. 
Samantha    at    Saratoga.     BY    JOSIAE 

ALLER'S    WIFE.     (MARIETTA    Hoi,- 

LEY.) 
Sartor    Resartus.     BY    THOMAS    CAR 

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Scarlet  Letter.     BY  NATHANIEL  HAW  • 

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Schonberg-Cotta    Family.     BY    MR* 

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Schopenhauer's  Essays.    TRANSLATBB 

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Scottish  Chiefs.     BY  JANB  PORTER. 
Scott's     Poems.     BY     SIR     WALTER 

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Second  Wife.     BY  E.  MARLITT. 
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E.  D.  E.  NT.  SOUTH  WORTH. 
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STERNE. 

Sesame  and  Lilies.  BY  JOHN  RUSKIN. 
Shakespeare's  Heroines.  BY  ANNA 

JAMESON. 
Shelley's  Poems.     BY  PERCY  BYSSHB 

SHELLEY. 

-  Shirley.     BY  CHARLOTTE  BRONTB. 
Sign    of    the    Four.     BY    A.  Co  NAN 

DOYLE. 

Silas  Marner.     BY  GEORGE  ELIOT. 
Silence  of  Dean  M?itland.     BY  MAX* 

WELL  GRAY. 

Sir  Gibbie.  BY  GEORGE  MACDONALD 
Sketch  Book.  BY  WASHINGTON  IRV 

ING. 

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(in. MORI;  SIM  ME. 
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LATBD  BY  F.  J.  CHURCH,  M.  A. 

Soldiers    Three.     BY    RUDYARD    Kir 

LINO. 

Sprmghaven.  BY  R.  D.  BLACKMORB. 
Spy.  BY  JAMES  FBNIMORB  COOPER. 
Stanley,  Henry  M.,  African  Explorer, 

Lile  of.     BY  A.  MONTBFIORB. 
Story  of  an  African  Farm.     BY  OLIYB 

SCHREINER. 
Story  of  John  G.  Paton.     TOLD  FOB 

YOUNO     FOLKS.     BY     RBV.     JA». 

PATON. 
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•wiss    Family    Robinson.     BY    JEAN 

RUDOLPH  WYSS. 
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DUMAS. 
Tale     of     Two     Cities.     BY     CHAS. 

DICKENS. 
tales   from   Shakespeare.     BY    CHAS. 

AND  MARY  LAMB. 
Tales  of  a  Traveller.     BY  WASHINGTON 

IRVING. 

Talisman.     BY  SIR  WALTER  SCOTT. 
Tanglewood    Tales.     BY    NATHANIEL 

HAWTHORNE. 
Tempest  and  Sunshine.     BY  MARY  J. 

HOLMES. 
Ten  Nights  in  a  Bar  Room.     BY  T.  S. 

ARTHUR. 

Tennyson's  Poems.     BY  ALFRED  TEN- 
NYSON. 
Ten    Years    Later.     BY    ALEXANDER 

DUMAS. 
Terrible     Temptation.     BY     CHARLES 

READS. 
Thaddeus     of     Warsaw.     BY     JA\E 

PORTER. 

Thelma.     BY  MARIB  CORELLI. 
Thirty   Years'   War.     BY   FREDERICK 

SCHILLER. 
Thousand    Miles    Up    the    Nile.     BY 

AMELIA  B.  EDWARUS. 
Three    Guardsmen.     BY    ALEXANDRE 

DUMAS. 
Three  Men  in  a  Boat.     BY  JEROME  K. 

JEROME. 

Thrift     BY  SAMUEL  SMILES. 
Throns    of   David.     BY    REV.    J.    H. 

INGRAHAM. 

Toilers  of  the  Sea.     BY  VICTOR  HUGO 
Tom  Brown  at  Oxford.     BY  THOMAS 

HUGHES. 
Tom      Brown's     School     Days.     BY 

THOS.  HUGHES. 
Tom  Burke  of  "Ours."     BY  CHARLES 

LEVER. 
Tour   of   the   World  in   Eighty   Days. 

BY  JULES  VERNB. 
Treasure  Island.     BY  ROBERT  Louis 

STEVENSON. 
Twenty  Thousand  Leagues  Under  the 

Sea.     BY  JULES  VERNE. 
Twenty  Years  After.     BY  ALEXANDRE 

DUMAS. 
Twice    Told    Tales.     BY    NATHANIEL 

HAWTHORNS. 
Two  Admirals.     BY  JAMBS  FBNIMORE 

COOPER. 

Two  Dianas.     BY  ALSXANDRE  DUMAS. 
Two  Years  Before  the  Mast.     BY  R.  H. 

DANA.  Jr. 

Uarda.     BY  GEORGE  EBERS. 
Uncle  Max.     BY  ROSA  N.  CAREY. 
Uncle    Tom's    Cabin.     BY    HARRIET 

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Utopia.     BY  SIR  THOMAS  MORE. 
Vanity  Fair.     BY  WM.  M.  THACKBHAY, 
Vendetta.     BY  MARIE  CORELLI. 
Vespucius,  Americus,  Life  and  Voyage* 

BY  C.  EDWARDS  LESTER. 
Vicar     of     Wakefield.     BY     OLIYB* 

GOLDSMITH. 
Vicomte    de    Bragelonne.     BY   ALBX- 

ANDRE  DUMAS. 

Views  A-Foot.     LY  BAYARD  TAYLOR 
Villette.     BY  CHARLOTTE  BRONTB. 
Virginians.     BY  WM.  M.  THACKBRAT 
Walden.     BY  HENRY  D.  THOREAU. 
Washington,     George,     Life     of.     B 

JARED  SVAP.KS. 
Washington  and  His  Generals.     BY  t 

T.   HSADLEY. 

Water  Babies.     BY  CHARLES  KINO* 

LEY. 
Water     Witch.     BY     JAMES      FENI- 

MORE  COOPER. 

Waverly.     BY  SIR  WALTER  SCOTT. 
Web«ter,  Daniel,  Life  of.     BY  SAMUBL 

M.  SCHMUCKER,  LL.D. 
Webster's       Speeches.       (SELECTED.? 

BY  DANIEL  WEBSTER. 
Wee  Wine.     BY  ROSA  N.  CAREY. 
Westward  Ho!     BY  CHARLES  KINGS 

LEY. 

We  Two.     BY  EDNA  LYAI  L. 
What's    Mine's    Mine.     BY    GEORGB 

MACDONALD. 
When    a    Man's    Single.     BY    J.    M. 

BARRIE. 
White     Company.     BY     A.     CONAN 

DOYLE. 

Whites    and    the    Blues.     BY    ALEX- 
ANDRE  DUMAS. 
Whittier's  Poems.  (EARLY.)  BY  Jowx 

G.    \VHITTIER. 

Wide,  Wide  World.     BY  SUSAN  WAR- 
NER. 
William,  the  Conqueror,  Life  of.     BY 

EDWARD  A.  P'REEMAN,  LL.D. 
William,     the    Silent,    Life    of.     BY 

FREDERICK  HARRISON. 
Willy  Reilly.         BY  WILLIAM  CARLB- 

TON. 

Window  in  Thrums.     BY  J.  M.  BARRIE 
Wing   and   Wing.     BY   JAM.DS    FENI- 

MORE  COOPER. 
Wolsey,  Cardinal,  Life  of.     BY  MAN. 

DELL  CREIGHTON. 
Woman  in  White.     BY  WILKIE  Coi 

LINS. 

Won  by  Waiting.     BY  EDNA  LYALL. 

Wonder  Book.  FOR  BOYS  AND 
GIRLS.  BY  NATHANIEL  HAW- 
THORNE. ' 

Woodstock.     BY  SIR  WALTER  SCOTT. 

Wooed  and  Married.  BY  ROSA  N. 
CAREY. 

Wooing  O't.     BY  MRS.  ALEXANDER. 

Wordsworth's  Poems.  BY  WILLIAM 
WORDSWORTH. 

Wormwood,     BY  MARIB  CORELLI 

Wreck  of  the  Grosvenor.  Br  W- 
CLARK  RUSSRLL. 


